Blessed

Today I have a lot to be thankful for.  Last night a pretty huge storm blew through the area.  There were wind gusts up to 80 mph and trees are down all over the place.  There are power outages from at least Wytheville to Richmond.  But not at Casa de Yopp!  All day long I've been getting more and more reminders of how blessed I am and how thankful I am for my world and my life. 

Friends
Last night I was sitting in Cookout, eating a burger and drinking a milkshake after having just seen "Magic Mike" with two of my best friends.  I'm thankful that I have wonderful friends who I can meet for movie and an unhealthy dinner on a Friday night.  I'm thankful that I had one of those friends in the car with me while I battled the elements and made my way from Lynchburg back to Roanoke.  Beth kept an eye on the radar map while I introduced her to the wonderful world of One Direction.

This morning Paul's best friend called to tell us that their power is out.  There are electric poles and trees down around his neighborhood and there's no estimate of when it's coming back, so their giving away everything in their freezer.  He invited us to come by and stock up on whatever we want.  They're giving everything away so it doesn't go bad, and it does my heart good to know that.

Electricity
Somehow we still have electricity.  It feels like business as usual around here.  I'm doing laundry and putting up blinds in the air conditioning, and it's hard to be annoyed by these chores when some people are sitting in sweltering heat.

Traffic Lights
A few minutes ago I drove to Paul's work to take him a cold jug of tea.  On the way there I noticed half the businesses I passed were out of power and the others were swarmed with people.  In general, the drive was pretty normal.  But when I left I realized I couldn't turn left where I needed to  because the traffic lights were out.  I ended up driving a pretty random route home because, getting around without traffic lights?  It's not easy.  It's actually pretty difficult.  So I took all right turns until I got to the interstate and could make my way home.

The Kindness of Strangers
When I was walking back to my car after taking Paul his tea, there was a woman walking across the parking lot holding a plate.  She asking me if I was going to Home Depot and I said no, that I was just visiting my husband.  She then gestured with her plate and told me that Home Depot was giving away pizza.  Home Depot was lucky enough to still have power and was giving pizza away to all the people who couldn't make their own lunch. I'm sure they'll make up for that cost with all the generators and chain saws that will be rolling out the doors this weekend.

Strong Trees
While a lot of people are spending their day cutting up fallen trees and dealing with insurance companies, we just have a some large twigs scattered around the yard and driveway.  About 4 houses a way a tree split down the middle.  I passed a house for sale that now has a tree laying on the roof.  There's also a huge tree by the library that fell on the power line and is being kept off Williamson Road by nothing but that power line. And all I have is a few twigs that I need to pick up.