This weekend my state had a HUGE ice storm. Bigger than anything I, or anyone I know, have ever seen before. A lot of towns still have no power, from damage to power lines, etc. Trees have been devestated – a lot of homes and cars were damaged by falling branches, etc. Most of my family and friends are currently without power. We are blessed. The only damage we personally had was the loss of our cable for two days and our internet up until about thirty minutes ago.

I missed you. I missed my calorie count website. It was weird being forcibly away from all this while at home. But I couldn’t help but see how blessed we are to still have heat, water, electricity and even tv again so quickly. A lot of people can’t say the same. And now another storm is a ‘brewing and there is a chance we’ll be doing it all over again – will we get lucky twice? Or maybe this storm just won’t be as bad. Here’s hoping.

Anyway, I’m not ashamed to admit I marked a lot of your new entries as read, saving a small handful that I could manage. At least it’s only Monday and it was largely weekend posts I’ll have missed. It’s getting late and this is probably all I’ll post for today, not that that’s unusual for a Monday. But I wanted to check in, mention where I’ve been not that many of you are likely to have noticed, and to write down my thoughts from the weekend. The weather has been frightful and it’s not over yet – it reminds you to try and be prepared for more and to count your blessings where they fall – to remember things are totally different every day all the time. Nothing – not even 150 year old beautiful, majestic trees – last forever.

Driving through town this weekend has been heartbreaking, like driving through a war zone or the spot of a natural disaster. I’m lucky to not know what I’m talking about – to not know it could be WORSE WORSE WORSE – that this is probably the worst I’ve ever personally seen – but to know the tree my son used to swing on last summer, that was so tall and old, it had been there practically forever, is gone now. And many more like it. So many people I know are still trying to get rid of the debris. I hope if another storm does indeed blow through, that it takes mercy on the people already trying to pick up the pieces.