So, yesterday I was puttering around. I was pondering blowing up my big raft and heading down to the water, but it was starting to cloud up and I was thinking, boy – those people really ought to get off the lake.
Within a few minutes of that thought, the lake emptied. A few minutes later, I get the bad weather phone call – severe thunderstorms, be prepared to take cover.
They weren’t kidding.
5 minutes later, the wind kicked up and the power went off. And it was raining! You could see the stream of water heading for my house, except now I have no power to run the shop vac.
Actually, now I have no running water and can’t even flush the toilet. The pump for the well is electric.
There is no stove to cook on. The gas stove has electronic ignition.
No air conditioning or fans.
No radio or internet to find out what is going on. My cell phone is half charged.
We have this make shift gutter set up, designed by men of course, that I put together when there is going to be a storm. The wind blew it apart. I was out there in that rain putting it back together. Otherwise all of that water will be in my basement.
It rains like this for 2 hours. At that point the water has made its way through the ground and is seeping in to my basement family room. All I can do is sop it up with beach towels. Fortunately, it wasn’t that bad this time. And I could use the water I was sopping up to flush the toilet. I sopped up about 5 gallons.
The beach has these big grooves washed away. I’ve never seen anything like it. That water had to be gushing pretty forcefully to do that!
I made myself a salad and a hamburger on the grill. I had a gallon of water in the fridge. I’m OK in those respects, but no water to wash hands, or dishes. Thank heaven I had some hand washing gel stuff.
So then, once it started getting dark, there’s really not much you can do. I sprayed myself down with bug spray and set off for a walk. Of course, it never occurred to me how dark this street was going to be! And no one was out. I’ll bet the ones that stayed were all down at the bar. I wasn’t going anywhere! All hot and sticky and coated in bug spray and can’t take a shower…UGH!
I tried to eat all the ice cream before it melted, but I couldn’t do it! The rest of the food seems to have kept OK.
And then as I was about to give it up for the day and just go to bed, the lights came on!
I was able to get all the dishes cleaned and take a shower. Whew! What a relief!
Its times like these that make you stop and think about all the little things we take for granted. Are you ever thankful that you can flush your toilet, or wash your hands? Not things we think about normally, right?
I’ve had students in Whole Life Overhaul tell me that they couldn’t find things to put on their gratitude list. The truth is, we all have tons to be grateful for. We’re often so busy looking at what we don’t have, that we forget to be thankful for what we do have. And sometimes we get a wake-up call…
What are you grateful for today?
Imagine how happy and positive you’ll feel when you walk into your nice clean kitchen first thing in the morning…
How to easily have a clean, happy, healthy home that oozes positive vibes!