It's raining hard outside right now. There is a frog (toad?) croaking directly behind my bedroom window, and it is such a happy sound.

I have always loved rainstorms. There is something about being inside, sheltered, when nature is letting loose that I find incredibly appealing. There is a comfort, a safeness that this brings that is incomparable to anything else.

One of the things I miss about Wisconsin is the summer thunderstorms. When it is so hot and muggy, and then finally the sky opens up with pounding rain and thunder and lightening... I love that. I used to get a blanket and sit on my parents screened in porch just to be as close as possible while still being sheltered. I could feel the spray of the wind through the rain on me, and the power of the thunderclaps through the cement, and I remember feeling so calm and peaceful in the middle of that.