Gratitude Journal #144

Today, I am grateful for electricity. We lost ours Friday evening around 5:00 and didn't regain it until Saturday afternoon around 1:00. The storm that blew through with up to 80 mile per hour winds was huge, and millions of people were affected. My sister in the DC area still doesn't have power. With all this dreadful heat, power loss is deeply opressive. I can't help but think about the days before air conditioning. We're spoiled. And I'm grateful for that.

Today, I am grateful for firefighters and emergency relief workers everywhere. Our un-airconditioned heat was nothing compared to the heat of the fires raging all over the west right now. My prayers go out to all who have evacuated...and especially to those who have returned home to find everything they owned gone.

Today, I am grateful for America's founding fathers. For all our problems and election-year bru-ha-ha and nastiness, what those men did when they signed the Declaration of Independence completely changed history. I highly recommend the book Signing their Lives Away by Denise Kiernan and Joseph D'Agnese*. It's a fascinating and fun look at the individuals who had the courage to put their name on a document that started a war that started a country that honors individual citizens' rights to freedom and the pursuit of happiness. Well, except at the airport, but we can't really blame TSA on the founding fathers, can we?

To all my American readers, Happy Independence Day!

*Disclaimer: I know Denise personally...she's been one of my sister's best friends since high school. I've never met Joe, but I hear he can make up funny songs on the spot, which is pretty cool. They did not ask me to promote their book, and I get nothing in return for recommending it. I paid for my copy of it when it first came out. And now you know.