Storms!

Yesterday we had a full morning of severe storms with 70 mph winds, hail, lightening, you name it but nary a tornado. This all occurred while we were in church. We had a brief flickering then loss of power during a class but it returned after a moment.  Once home after lunch we discovered we had no power. The neighbors were out, walking, talking, sharing, laughing. . . . and so it goes. Trees were down, those that hadn't been downed by the winter storm of a few months ago.

I find it so very interesting that it doesn't seem to take us too long when we have no means of in-home entertainment to immediately return to community. It cheered my heart to see people connecting, offering help to one another, opening garage doors that enclosed cars and needed two people to get them open without power, etc. 

Naps were taken by some, reading by others, visiting by yet others. It was a long lazy Sunday afternoon. After a quick dinner out, we came home to a darkening home so out came the book lights we had bought after our life-stopping ice storms and power outages of days and weeks in December of this past year. How grateful I was that we had upper 70's and not 90's to be without electricity. I was also grateful that we had cell phones and our iPhones still had internet access so we could connect to the power company and telephone company to report the lost connections in our homes. We read until 8:30 p.m. when we tired of using such tiny lights and went to bed with windows open to provide a little coolness. 

We slept until we were awakened by someone's home security alarm going off at 11:15 p.m. That was our signal that our power was 'on'. A walk through the house revealed what lights we had turned on during the evening inadvertently. (more than I suspected, we are such creatures of habit, expecting lights to work when we enter darkened rooms, then forget to turn them 'off' when they have no power at all) The windows were now closed as we couldn't sleep with some neighbor's home alarm sounding. This morning it is still going off. I suppose those neighbors are on vacation and have not neighbors who have a means to get into the house and re-set the alarm. What a racket it is making! 

I'm off for a walk before the temperature rises to the upper 90's as they are predicting. I've got a day of laundry, one patient visit, lunch with a friend, errands, etc.  A nice blend of many things, a good way to start another week. I thank God for this new day.

This is the day which the LORD has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:24