Overnight Rain

Almost to the park

Sometime between two and three this morning, I was sort of restlessly not-sleeping when a bolt of lightning with simultaneous loud (and yes, I really mean loud) thunder shook the house.  My surprise jerking in bed completed the awakening of The Husband.  And once we were awake, we stayed awake for a while.  Talking in the night, like we did almost every night in the early part of our marriage.

From the bridge near the library.

We got up to check on the gutters, it was raining pretty hard and we were interested to see how the new micro-mesh gutter covers were doing.  About like we expected considering that we're nowhere near the leaf-falling/needle accumulating season that does such an excellent job of completely blocking our gutters.

Then back to bed to chat for a few more minutes, solve whatever problems we actually thought we could solve in the wee-hours-of-the-morning darkness.  I loved it - that we were both awake and content to chat.

Near the library.

It was 66 degrees out when I left for my walk, but at 88% humidity wasn't quite as comfortable as I'd like. When I reached the city park with the creek flowing through I was astonished at the depth and swiftness of the water.  That last picture?  The weeds/grass in the middle is usually about 4-5 feet high, and the water flows down the middle of the weeds/grass fairly invisibly because of the weeds. Too bad there wasn't a person around for perspective on how broad the creek became overnight.  I have a respect for water and its fierceness.

Amazing volume of water!

I ran into a friend at the grocery - we'll both be laborers at the funeral tomorrow.  She's in her 80's (why are nearly all my friends either w-a-y older or w-a-y younger than me?) and I'm a bit concerned about her being on her feet working as hard as we'll be working. I'll have to make it as easy on her as I can.

And I've read some things lately that cause me to think. (Yeah, I'm probably in my head a bit more than I should be.) I often wish I could wear some kind of foil hat, or hex or repellent against the Adversary that works so hard to win us over to the "dark side".  I dislike that he knows when I make certain goals and does his best to thwart me. I dislike that discouragement is one of his tools.

Today I'm grateful for summer storms that help clear the air. For morning walks in the world's freshness. For the fact that even though I forgot to buy carrots and bought the wrong rolls, there's always the chance to get it right next time. (Along with chances to make many other things right the next time.)