Rain-soaked beauty...

While the East Coast is covered in snow, those of us in Southern California are enjoying a bit of sunshine after nearly a solid week of rain. We got nearly half a year's worth of rain in six days where I live ~ and with it came a few woes, including a flood of water in our dining room. Well, not quite a flood, but the ceiling was literally leaking from one side of the room to the other. And then water started pouring into the kitchen on the last day of rain ~ we actually wondered at one point if the ceiling was saturated and possibly going to cave in. Not fun, but a lot of folks had it a lot worse, so we were fortunate ~ at least we were able to get everything cleaned up in time for Christmas.
On a break in the rain on the fifth day, I wandered out into the yard to see how much damage the strong winds that had just blown through had done. Things were a bit of a mess and one of our bushes took quite a beating, but all in all, things weren't doing badly. In fact, this one calla lily was blooming as though nothing had happened. Seeing the beauty of the rain drops on it made me smile ~ the first in a few days, I'm sure.
Things are drying out well, but I'm kind of hoping the rain the forecast is calling for in the next few days doesn't materialize. There's nothing beautiful about leaky ceilings.