Storms and Other Reasons to Feel Grateful

The past few days has been unusual to say the least. This past weekend, the Saint Louis, Missouri area got some very bad storms. My Saint Louis neighborhood was affected. It all began on Friday night when around 8 pm the tornado hit. My home wasn't damaged, but the poor folks across the street as well as many homes less than a mile from me sustained damage. :( My family and I spent the night and the next day without power. Initially, we couldn't even leave our subdivision. The fire and police needed the main road for emergencies.

Not many folks could get around either way. Right after the storms, not more than fifty feet from my house there were two trees across the street. It's kind of shocking to think to myself: wow, a tornado hit less than five hundred feet from my house. I dodged a bullet. A humongous bullet.

This weekend was just another reason to stay strong and keep myself distracted. I was so tired this weekend from the lack of sleep. When there's no power it's so easy to fall into staring at the wall and imitating a rock. I tried to do some reading, but most of all, I tried to keep up with my copy edits. Since I'm into edit-mode right now I'm not really writing anything new. I'm more or less recharging the creative battery. I'm actually glad that I wasn't writing anything new with a heavy due date cause right now I'm too tired to write something eloquent in the computer.

For the past few weeks I've been vigilant about backing up my documents on Google Docs or in my DropBox. I think it's way too easy to lose everything these days. (I'm famous for losing my car keys, but never my glasses since blind people don't get a lot of work done...) Whether to a fire, tornado, or even an earthquake. After spending months working on my manuscript, I wouldn't want to lose not only my belongings but my words as well.

I feel so grateful that no one was seriously hurt in this storm and that I have a chance to write this post from my home. Hope everyone has a great week!