What A Week

This has been a week for the books. Even though it was shortened by the holiday on Monday, it seems to have been weeks long. I had a couple of large projects looming overhead that I really should’ve been working on, but was unfortunately derailed by a nasty virus. No, not Swine Flu, but rather a virus of the computer kind. One that infiltrated and corrupted our database server, where all of the data for our company resides. Finding and killing the virus wasn’t too huge of a deal. That was accomplished fairly quickly actually. But in the process we lost a good day & a half worth of transactions, customer orders, purchase orders, shipments, receipts… all of which had to be rekeyed and reprocessed one at a time.

At the same time, my wife’s week wasn’t much better. She had her own laundry list of issues at work which caused her a great deal of stress, anxiety and anger. Not to mention that her father went to the emergency room yesterday and they wanted to keep him for a day or two to drain fluid off of his lungs. (Don’t worry by the way, he’s okay. Just needed some rest and diuretics and he will be fine.)

But as I sat here today, decompressing and reflecting on what a crazy week it has been, I hadn’t even thought about today being the anniversary of 9/11. I mean I knew it, but I hadn’t really processed it. That is, until I read a friend’s blog post that made me choke up and reflect on that terrible day eight short years ago. When I look at my life through the lens of such a horrific tragedy and the ever present effects that it brought on, I inevitably have two reactions;

First I still mourn for the immense loss of human life, for the scarring of a nation, and for the trigger of a monstrosity of a war that continues to this day.

But secondly, and more importantly, I thank God. I have been so unbelievably blessed that it’s sometimes easy to take it all for granted. I could easily take this moment to actually count my blessings, and to be honest I have been internally, but I won’t bore you with it just now. Instead, I want to encourage everyone to do the same. Take a few minutes. Close your eyes. And thank God for your blessings and the knowledge that no matter how horribly your day or week or month has been, there is still so very much to be thankful for.

The tragedy that was 9/11 changed our country and our lives forever.

But time passes.

Scars heal.

Love grows.

Flowers bloom.

Life… Goes… On…

And we are committing a major error if we fail to recognize and thank God for it. Life is good. God bless all of you.

God Bless the United States of America!