Earthquake

One of the down falls of living in a place with quite possibly the best weather of anywhere on the planet is dealing with a natural disaster. This morning at 8:41 am we had an earthquake. We have been living on the West Coast for 11 1/2 years and in this time we have only experienced 4 earthquakes, 1 in Las Vegas and 3 in Southern California. Today's earthquake was the most profound because it occurred 25 miles from our house. As earthquakes go it was categorized as moderate quake at 5.6 on the Richter Scale but I think the seismologists were downgrading it to a 5.5 (like this really matters, probably to them and no one else!!). This earthquake was very different than the other 3 because of the intensity. The house shook twice, at first subtly and then what seemed like violently. The shaking lasted about 5 seconds but that 5 seconds is a long time when you are really not sure what is happening. There was no damage to our house but the children were very concerned. Jonathan (my son) was already in our bedroom but he went to get something in his bedroom and came running back asking "what was that?". My daughter (Lauren) was still in her bedroom but came running toward our bedroom as well asking the same question with a very concerned look on her face. My wife and I had the same answer, "it was an earthquake". Like I stated we had no damage and luckily there was no damage in the area. The earthquake was centered in a remote area where there is mostly desert but it was felt in San Diego (60 miles away) and Los Angeles (90 miles away). I was very surprised to see there wasn't any significant damage anywhere, thank goodness. I guess my wife and I are true West Coast people because the earthquake didn't seem to faze either one of us. It was just another beautiful day in Southern California.

We spent most of the afternoon cleaning out the garage, we have a lot of STUFF. We mostly re-arranged the STUFF but managed to sweep out the garage. By the way the STUFF mostly consists of the children's toys; bicycles, skateboards, scooters, sports equipment, etc.. We were able to accomplish our objective which was to clear a path to the refrigerator in the garage and arrange the STUFF neatly.

I wanted to follow-up on my forgiveness statement of yesterday. I want to impress to everyone that I am in no way forgiving and forgetting. First and foremost I have to forgive myself for my past deeds or I will not be able to move forward. Secondly, I CANNOT forget what I have done to myself and my family because I do not want any repeat offenses in the years to come. It is a balancing act, true forgiveness does not mean forgetting. One of the reasons of having this blog is to not forget the past but put it in its proper prospective. What's done is done and no one can change those facts. I had a horrible case of denial and it took a cataclysmic ending to finally succumb to the fact that I am and will always be a compulsive gambler. I fought this feeling for a number of years and now I realize how bad I was.