Dear Reader:

So far today the weather here has seemed more like a long thunderstorm…just without the thunder or lightning.

The rain and winds are supposed to pick up, however,  a little more between 12 and 3 today (Monday) so I thought I would shoot this short little blog post off now in case we lose electricity later. Certain spots in Summerville have already lost it and the lights have blinked on and off here a few times this morning…so just wanted to get this one thought out in case we do lose power.

Gratitude…what I am feeling right now is gratitude more massive than Hurricane Irma herself. I am thankful for the down grade to a tropical storm and hopefully less destruction and/or lives lost. That has been my prayer today for one and all.

It reminded me of the book 365 Thank You’s which some of you might have read a few years back but it is still appropriate for each and every day.

If you don’t know about this book I will include a synopsis from it but basically it is about a man whose life was in turmoil, personally, professionally, and emotionally. He had reached the end of his rope when an epiphany came to him on a mountain hike. He needed to write a thank you note for each day of the year to people he knew and even some he didn’t… but who had indirectly helped him along his path or inadvertently showed him what path not to take. All kinds of people had made a difference in his own “track” changing it constantly…much like Hurricane Irma.

Here is the synopsis…if you haven’t read it…check it out…and see how gratitude (for what we have) can lead us to places we never could have imagined in our former lives.

So until tomorrow….No matter what befalls us now, this very minute…let us be thankful and grateful for all things leading up to this present moment.

365 THANK YOUS:
The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life
By John Kralik
Hyperion
Publication date: January 4, 2011
([email protected])

The art of the thank you note is sometimes seen as a dying custom. With e-mail, cell phones, and other means of instant communication at our fingertips, the thought of hand-writing and mailing a card seems outdated and inconvenient. And following two years of economic struggles, environmental disasters, and other worldwide worries, it’s hard to find anything to be thankful for. At the end of 2007, John Kralik would have agreed. His law firm was operating in the red. After a long separation, his divorce still wasn’t finalized and he was living in an apartment the size of a toaster oven. He was forty pounds overweight, and his girlfriend had just broken up with him. At the age of 52, it seemed as if he had nothing to be grateful for.

But a walk through the California hills on January 1, 2008 changed all that. Unhappy with his lot in life, Kralik realized that if he could somehow be thankful for the things he already had in life, then perhaps the things he wanted would follow. His plan: send 365 thank you notes in a year, one for each day. By the time he was finished he had lost weight, run a marathon, raised money for charities, turned his law firm around, reconnected with old friends and relatives, gotten back together with his girlfriend, and realized his dream of becoming a writer with his first book, 365 THANK YOUS.

Told with extreme honesty, Kralik’s story is at times heartwarming, at times heartbreaking, but always inspiring, and a great example of how even small acts of appreciation can truly go a long way.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*As the lights kept going on and off I started looking around for Christmas candle holders and battery operated tea candles…I found a beautiful little angel for a place to put a tea candle in her arms and left all the tea candles on. It was so comforting as the winds gusted and the rains came pouring down to look up and see the lights.

*** It is now 8:00 and finally the rains and wind are slowly subsiding…both picked up much more force than anticipated initially by the local weather channels. We thought Irma would move on out by afternoon (yesterday) but it stalled, unfortunately, and flooding became more than just a normal issue…but an on-going problem all over the lowcountry…especially the barrier islands, downtown area of Charleston and low areas throughout the local counties of Charleston, Dorchester  Berkeley and Colleton.

We have ended up getting more rainfall this time than we did with Hurricane Matthew about a year ago. This was not expected. California Dreaming, one of my favorite restaurants in Charleston, now looks like a fortress surrounded by a moat.

Here in Summerville, in my neighborhood, we have been spared most of the flooding but the combination of rain and wind has definitely made quite a mess of most yards…though easily cleaned up in comparison to other areas.

My scariest moment came when the local weather channels predicted a tornado with winds up to 60 miles per hour was heading in a path towards Summerville.

Suddenly my Iphone started making a funny beeping sound and it was the Emergency Alert Service letting me know I was in the path of a potential tornado and to find shelter immediately.

While the wild beeps continued I ran to the bathroom and stayed until past time for the ‘tornado’ to pass. All the neighbors were texting each other while sitting on top of comode seats in their own bathrooms wondering if the tornado was coming or not coming (actually quite laughable) …. but all saying basically the same thing later…”Whew! and Thank You…Amen!”

So Dear God…”Whew, thank you, and amen for seeing us safely through the day.” (I began and end the day in gratitude!)