the first time was a novelty

but when an earthquake wakes me up at 1 am, I am over it.
I know that earthquakes are common, regular occurrences in other parts of the world, but they don't happen here, well they didn't before Tuesday.
So the big question around here in the last few days is, did you feel the earthquake and what did you think it was?
Well I felt it and I thought my house was about to explode.
I was upstairs working on schoolwork and the house started to shake and I heard a loud rumbling. My first thought was that the washing machine was off balance so I ran downstairs to stop it before it woke up Lily. By the time I got to the bottom of the steps, I realized that I wasn't doing laundry. My next thought was that the hot water heater or the furnace underneath the house was about to explode. While pondering what the heck was going on, mere seconds, Lily woke up and I ran into her room to get her. It was really loud in her room due to her old windows with storm windows were rattling like crazy. I took Lily into the living room and I tried to figure out whether it was just our house shaking or the whole world.
As soon at is stopped I called Jeff, he didn't answer so I called back, and I finally got him after the third attempt. I planned to ask him if the whole world was shaking or just our house, but by the third attempt I realized that it was all around, not just our house. Jeff and I both discovered on facebook that everyone was posting about the earthquake and I was a bit terrified to find friends in Wilmington, NC, Charlotte, NC, Washington D.C., and all over the East Coast was posting about the earthquake. For a minute or two I thought it was the end of the world, I didn't know that an earthquake could be felt by such a large area. I also did realize how LOUD earthquakes were, it was so strange and surreal.
Supposedly there have been additional smaller aftershocks since the big one, but I hadn't felt any until last night.
I went to bed at 10:30, woke up briefly when Jeff came to bed, and then was startled awake at 1 am when the house was shaking. This incident was not as long as the first earthquake, unless I slept through it, and it wasn't as loud as the the first one, but it was still scary. So the novelty of earthquakes is gone.
Supposedly this earthquake is a once-in-a-lifetime event and though it is really scary and I say I don't want to experience it again, I kind of do, in the daytime though. Now every time I hear the rumble of a big truck or plane I pause thinking it is another earthquake. I never thought that I would experience an earthquake in Virginia of all places, especially with an approaching hurricane, maybe it really is the end of the world, or maybe not.