Day 73- Gander Area Food Bank and Electricity

After being as into the Olympics last year as I could possibly be without actually being in them, I was thankful for Canada.  It's fabulous to be able to watch sports 24/7.  It's fun that everyone else watches and it provides great conversation for a few weeks.  I am also a huuuuuge sucker for the touching moments.  Oh, those touching moments!  I know other people completely disagree and just want the events, and I do find myself a bit weary of the back stories by the end, but I love me an emotional story.

One story in particular that touched me last year was that of the town of Gander, CA.  When the planes crashed into NYC on 9/11, many other planes were rerouted to other places.  That's how Gander factors into the whole thing.  Many Americans were stranded there for days, and the people of this town took them in and treated them as if they were family.  There's much more to it than that, and I encourage you to look it up.  It really moved me.

Anyway... short story long, I decided to donate to Gander in honor of my "Canada" post from last year.  Tom helped me to find a food bank there, and I'm pleased to contribute to this sweet little town today.

http://www.canadahelps.org/CharityProfilePage.aspx?CharityID=s77405

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We had a real doozy of a storm last night.  There were sirens and rain and blustery winds and hail and all kinds of wacky weather.  Many of my kids today had heavy lids from late nights spent watching the news or hiding in their basements.  Others frantically asked me, after hearing the stories of their classmates, if it was a big issue that they had slept through it all.  Hmm... maybe kind of sort of that's an issue, but I was diplomatic about this.

The whole thing really didn't disturb my sleep.  I don't need a whole lot of sleep to function like a normal person anyway.  Perhaps normal is not the correct word, as I'm not sure anyone would describe me that way, but you catch my drift.  I went to bed (in front of a big window) during the sirens because I was tired.  The second set of sirens was mildly annoying, but I was ready to get my sleep on... so I did.  I hoped for the best this morning...

...and I got it!

Growing up rurally (I don't think that's really a word, but I like it), storms did not scare me that much.  They never really have.  In fact, I think it's kind of fun when you're safe inside and you have the snow/rain/sleet/wind/tornado globe effect happening all around you.  However, the ruralness (woo hoo!  another new word with the rural root) of my childhood living situation led to storms scaring me in a different way.  It was the aftermath that was uncertain and often undesirable. 

storms= tree branches all over
tree branches all over= lots of cleanup and no electricity
no electricity= spans of at least three days at a time and learning to use toilet flushes creatively before they run out

I was ecstatic to wake up this morning and realize that our power was still on.  No joke.  I'm a suburbanite these days, and I doubt that we would ever go without power for too long, barring some sort of major occurence.  Yet, I do not take post-storm electricity for granted.  Not one bit.   

I smirked during my shower and after I flushed the toilet (just because) and while I was blow drying my hair and so on and so forth.  It was as if I had won some sort of bet or beaten some kind of odds.  Electricity rules!

Thank you, electricity, you made my day.

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