Sunday Gratitude – 21.VII.2024

Last week kind of flew by in the blink of an eye, and yet at the same time, I’ve been exhausted.

I am grateful that the presentation on the 12th went off without too much difficulty. It’s interesting, because there were a whole lot of “small” bumps in the road, from the weekend I’d planned to put the bulk of the thing together getting eaten up by shopping for a washing machine, to the computer screen getting broken, to certain programs not working completely correctly, it all kind of came together, even though by the end of it, I was beyond tired and had been tempted to just quit in frustration. Even though I consider St. Alexander’s life to be the one topic I’m probably close to “expert” on, I certainly got a deeper perspective on a number of things pertaining to his life. As “pointless” as that may seem to most of the world, I’m thankful for it. Wouldn’t you know, though, that as I was pulling out an extension cord “just in case”, a second one was tangled with it, and I was too frustrated with everything that I just threw both in my bag… Wouldn’t you know, I was in a large room with only two outlets and so I needed both of those to power the equipment!

I am grateful that I was able to get the one exterior window sill repaired for a reasonable price, and I wasn’t forced to get a whole new window there. The guys who came were really nice – they were speaking Russian to each other, and at the end, I said a few words in Russian to the one, and he started chattering away to me in Russian. I don’t know all that he was saying to me, I’d catch some of it and then miss things, but it’s fine. The window had been something that had been hanging over my head for a long, long time, so I’m just thankful it’s done.

I am grateful that President Trump survived the assassination attempt. I don’t use this blog for political blogging – I’m terrible at it because I can’t be right at the keyboard with a hot take on everything – but the whole thing seems to underscore how there are so many metaphysical aspects involved. Sure, on the surface, one can chalk it up to a crazy person with a rifle and crazy good luck, but I don’t think I buy that.

I am thankful that the RNC went off well and there weren’t any riots anywhere around here. What happened in Kenosha in 2020 was scary enough.

I am thankful that we’ve been having pretty decent weather. I’m grateful to have had a really beautiful excursion with my three youngest – and quite by accident!

And, as always, I am thankful for you.

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