Perspective is a funny thing. I was chiding myself for not getting more work done lately, for a whole myriad of reasons, including the fading daylight, which has made it darker on some of the evening trips I've had to take lately. A few weeks ago, I could have been beading but now it is simply too dark. Yesterday, here on the East Coast, all attention was focused on Sandy, the "superstorm." My son's school was cancelled, so he asked me to drive him places as he was bored at home and the weather didn't really worsen until nightfall. All day our power flickered on and off as I tried to do laundry and other things, concerned that we would lose electricity for good at some point. I got all the way through dinner and as I was preparing to sit down and bead, the power went. I was frustrated, but resigned. I lit candles, turned on the flashlights I had stored conveniently following the meteorologist's instructions and helped my son study for a vocabulary test. Just as we were finishing up, the power came back on! I settled down with my project. Not long into the work, my needle snapped in half, an unfortunately common casualty when working with right angle weave. I got out a new needle and struggled to thread it. After more minutes than I like to admit, I finally got it threaded. Just two passes through, though, and I pulled out the eye. More thread snipping to get a clean edge and struggling to thread the thick thread through the thin needle. I had to take a break to eliminate the feeling of frustration, and the double images from squinting. After many attempts, I got it threaded and continued till the thread, shortened by my snippings, came to an end. Before heading to bed, I threaded the needle with new thread and worked it into the project and did a couple of turns so it is ready to go. This morning I awoke to rain, light wind, but power, school up and running and no real problems. Then I saw the news with flooding, fires, wind-ripped buildings and sunken tall ships (one my family actually saw in Florida years ago), worst of all, over 30 people lost their lives. So, a good breakfast of perspective, and I will see how much work I can accomplish today!