It’s quiet this morning. Silent in my house. It’s been a long time since I sat in stillness, alone. It’s good for me, I think. I have gotten away from the practice of daily meditation. I think I need to re-establish that practice. It always did me good. Lately, I’ve been so consistently happy, I didn’t feel the need. Amazing how the lack of drama in your life can free you up to just enjoy it.

Not that I haven’t had drama. The whole thing with my ex, his being institutionalized, having to go to CT and inventory his things. And then to come back and a couple weeks later have a massive hurricane to prepare for, and deal with the aftermath. But those things aren’t personal drama. I said to Dan at some point after the hurricane, “I’m so glad you and I have no drama! I can’t imagine how hard all this could have been if we had any drama at all in our relationship.” He totally agreed with me. It is a new-found joy to me, to be in a loving relationship that is supportive in every way.

So, it’s silent in my house because he had to leave early to go back home and take care of some things there. He’ll be back later, and we’ll go to open mic, happily. It’s been canceled for 2 weeks now, because of Irma. Really looking forward to that tonight.

Yesterday we drove to my sister and brother-in-law’s house. We didn’t spend the night because we had so much still to do here.  They were so lucky with this storm, that it went east and not west. Their home is basically unscathed. A couple of panels covering a soffit blew out, and the yard and pool are still not completely caught up, but the house itself had no damage at all. There could have been terrible flooding had the storm gone further west as predicted. She lost a lot of her lemons and grapefruits off the trees, but not all. The orange tree is laden with fruit, and we didn’t see any on the ground. I am so happy that that little piece of paradise is so intact.

One of my favorite beaches a couple miles from my sister showed the power of that storm.  Half the beach is still closed as they try to remove all the trees and limbs that fell.  Everywhere you go, there are piles and piles of brush, tree limbs, cut up trees, waiting to be removed.  Even though that storm went east of us, 100 mph winds did a lot of damage.  We were so lucky though, it could have easily been so much worse.

It’s a good thing, to have some time for reflection. Love and light to everyone.

And so, the power returns. Sometime last night, or this morning. Despite their many promises, there was no call from Duke Energy. We were calling them late last night, after midnight, and this morning and no one knew anything, except that someone had been dispatched to my house. I was the only one in the neighborhood, they said. Of course, I’m pretty sure that the people who answer the phones there have very little ability to get an assessment about what is happening outside their office. It’s not their fault. They were kind, apologetic, really trying hard to get answers for us.

We took off this morning for Harbor Freight to see if they had a generator in stock. They were selling the last one as we walked in the door. Then we headed to my house and when I walked in I gasped! A light was ON, and the house was cool. I was so happy. I love it at Dan’s, but it’s nice to be able to come home. Really nice. So after we straightened up a little around my house, we headed back to his, to get the stuff out of the refrigerator and the freezer that we were keeping to bring to my house.

We ordered a nice generator while we were at his house. One that will run my whole house. So happy, I won’t have to go through this again! It was his mother’s thank you gift for taking care of her and Dan’s brother during the storm. So that’s awesome. His family is good people!

He’s on his way here, and I think tonight will be Chinese food delivered. We are both pretty wasted, and we were up very late last night. So life is getting back to normal. Couldn’t be happier.

Love and light.

Still no power. It is getting old. Thankfully we have Dan’s house to stay in, which is like home to me too, but I long for my house, to sleep in my own bed. I know I’m very lucky. So many many people have it so much worse from this storm.

We thought we had power, based on the outage maps online. We called and plugged in the house address and were told there was no outage. So we went shopping and spent $250.00 to resupply my house, took the food over and still had no power. After I called and spoke to someone at Duke Energy, who apologized and said it would be on by tonight, we took all the stuff that needed refrigeration to Dan’s as quickly as possible. I don’t think the ice cream melted.

Dan just got notice that Duke Energy won’t be sending out disconnection notices or charging late fees til all the power is back on. Wow. Big of them. They won’t disconnect you from power you don’t have. What is that? Arrogance? Ridiculousness?

We spent the afternoon resting. Dan from his fire ant bites and me from my arthritis which is really acting up since this storm. Then we decided to go out to a movie. Neither of us has been to a movie in over a year. It was fun. It was located in downtown St. Pete. A beautiful huge complex.

It turned out to be a nice day, and no food was lost, lol. I just talked to them again, and they say estimated to be on by midnight tonight, and at the latest tomorrow. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Love and light.

Most mornings I read my horoscope on http://www.astrology-zodiac-signs.com/. Sometimes it’s right on, often I feel like it’s a little behind. Often I think “duh!” when it tells me something that to me is obvious. This morning the last sentence was this:

“Faced with exams of life, the only thing you need to keep in mind is your own value and the love you deserve.”

Now I took issue with that. While of course we need to remember our own value, I think it’s more important to follow Marianne Williamson’s admonition to extend love, than it is to think about the love we deserve.

It’s true, to my way of thinking, that you will get back what you put out. If you focus on extending love, you’ll get love back, and that will be the love you deserve. Right? Isn’t that karma? It’s not just karma, it’s the law of attraction. Extend kindness, you’ll get kindness. Extend compassion, you’ll get compassion. Extend love, then you’ll get love. Be angry at the way you were treated in the past, you’ll get more of it. Feel sorry for yourself because of what happened to you when you were young, and you’ll get more to feel sorry for yourself about.

Giving acknowledges having. You can’t give what you don’t have. But if you give the little you have, soon you’ll find yourself with a lot more to give. There’s an old Neil Young song, Comes A Time, that says, “We were young, we were giving. That’s how we kept what we gave away.” Yeah. That’s how you do it.

It’s been true in my life, about so many things. When I focused on what I wanted, and not on the unpleasant crap that I went through, I generally, eventually got what I wanted. Sometimes even more than I asked for.

Don’t mean to pontificate.  Just my morning thoughts about focusing on the love you deserve. Focus on extending love. That’s what will free you up.

Love and light.

I still have no power. We went to my house about 11 today, and it was hot inside. We opened the fridge, and even though we’d cleaned all the perishable food out of here, and it had appeared to be clean, it STUNK. So, Dan took out the drawers and hosed them out outside. I got a cleaner and sprayed and washed down the whole inside. It smelled fine after that.

We had some piles of brush that needed to be put on the curb with the rest of the limbs and brush we’d moved out there this week. Dan did most of that while I cleaned out my fridge. Then we ate some warmed up hot and sour soup, outdoors on the deck.

As we were eating, one of those damn fruit rats (which we have been setting traps for) ran right out the back door. Dan jumped up immediately and managed to chase him back inside and over to the traps, where the stupid rat backed onto one of the traps and was caught! Yay!!!! Dan felt bad, he was wearing his big boots (so as not to be bitten by any more fire ants. Which is another story altogether. Let me just say that the horror stories of the fire ants floating in water is true.) and when he stomped his feet to scare the rat, he stomped mud all over the kitchen floor. I said, “Small price to pay to find one of those damn things in a trap!” The last two we’ve caught have been big fat ones. With tails about 8” or 9” long and bodies the same size, and quite fat. They give me the creeps in such a bad way!

Just before we left Dan’s for my place, he noticed the pool guy was here, cleaning and rechlorinating the pool and the hot tub. It was his first trip to service the pool after Irma. We were so glad to see him, because the hot tub and the pool feel so good on things like arthritis, fire ant bites, sore muscles from yard work. So tonight we may head over there, once darkness falls for sure.

On the way back to Dan’s we continued what has been a daily search for ice. The icemaker in his fridge doesn’t work, and until last night we have wanted it for the coolers. Well, now that we’ve thrown everything out, and now that his power is back on, we just needed one bag of ice for the freezer to use for cold drinks. Of course, we’ve had very little luck all week. It comes in to a store and is gone in about 20 minutes. But today since our need was not so great, of course we found it at the 2^nd place we looked. I have to say though, that it made me feel so “back to normal” to be able to drop ice in a glass of water. Thank God for small things.

And for large things. Like the beautiful weather we’ve had all week. Like the love of a good man. Like being retired, and not having to work through all this. Love and light.

It seems that one good side effect from Irma is that we are having beautiful weather now. It’s been fairly dry, in the mid 80’s. Perfect. It will probably go back into the 90’s before it cools for good, but it’s such a reprieve, especially when you don’t have power.

It seems there’s a good chance we will get power back today. The TV said last night that the whole county should be restored by midnight last night. I don’t know if I was restored by midnight because we left at about 8 for Dan’s since he had power for sure. We’ll go back to my house today, there is more clean-up to do. And one of my friends wants to come over for a little while. Probably to swap hurricane stories, lol.

I know it’s obvious, but it is amazing how we take for granted having power to run our whole houses. So that every time we flip a switch, or turn the washing machine on it works. How very lucky we are to have air conditioning, and just know it’s there. I think we always know this, but when you do without, you become really grateful for it. Grateful to have first world problems, unlike the Caribbean islands hit by this storm.

I haven’t been able to keep up with blogs for awhile now. First too much prep, then not enough battery life on my phone. I want to thank everyone though, for your well wishes and prayers.

It’s nice to have life begin to return to normal. Love and light.