It’s a bore to complain about the weather but I don’t know if it’s ever rained so much in New York as it has over the past couple of weeks.
The rain has been virtually ceaseless and as much as I adore Millie it can be an olfactory challenge to live with a wet Golden Retriever in a small Manhattan apartment for days at a time, though Millie doesn’t seem to mind.
The other day in the elevator a neighbor asked me if I knew what a cubit was and if I could translate the dimensions. Don’t laugh—he’s a carpenter.
Yesterday they halted play at the U.S. Open Golf Championship at Bethpage Black out on Long Island, stranding Tiger Woods after the sixth hole (he was one over par). Tiger did not look happy but of course cats hate the rain.
Last night I happened to turn on the Yankee channel on the off chance that they had somehow gotten play in that afternoon and I could get a score. After innumerable rain delays they were STILL playing a game that had been scheduled to start at 1:05 that afternoon. It was now almost 10. Were they just trying to show up the golfers? Another deluge struck the city just as the last out was made. It was time to take Millie for her late night swim, er, walk.
Today, though, I have a real reason for concern. By now you all must know Tammie Temple from Monroe, Louisiana, winner of our New Year, New You contest. Many of you have followed her blog and progress on the Guideposts.com, and thousands of you have joined the New Healthy You club.
A couple of months ago the GUIDEPOSTS team of experts traveled to Monroe to start Tammie’s makeover. She needed to lose weight, that was important. But more important were the changes Tammie needed and wanted on the inside. She wanted to banish her negative thinking and accept herself as worthy of positive change. “All my life people called me fat,” Tammie said, and that just made her feel that she was a bad person, and an unworthy one.
We hooked Tammie up with a team of GUIDEPOSTS experts to help her with diet, weight control, fitness, attitude and spirituality, the last being the most important to her. “I want to be worthy of the person the Lord made me to be,” Tammie says. Already she’s lost 19 pounds and three dress sizes in just a couple of months. She did it through exercise, healthy eating, and a better attitude.
What’s got me worried is that Tammie is scheduled to come by the office any time now with Julie Hadden of The Biggest Loser and GUIDEPOSTS cover fame. Julie is Tammie’s overall trainer. I want to take them up on the roof of our 22-floor building and show them what New York looks like from way up there and do a video interview. It should be a blast…except that it’s supposed to rain. Again.
So I’ve been sitting here praying for the rain to hold off. So far, so good. And look, here’s Tammie and Julie now. Come on in! I’ll get back to this blog later. We’ve got to hurry.
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I’m back. God is good. It still hasn’t rained—just a few renegade drops—and now Julie and Tammie along with some GP staffers are off to visit the statue of Norman Vincent Peale that stands outside Marble Collegiate Church a few blocks down Fifth Avenue. Dr. Peale, of course, was the Godfather of positive thinking. Like so many of us, he too struggled with negative thinking patterns until he decided to do something about it and change. And change he did, writing one of the most influential books of the twentieth century, The Power of Positive Thinking, which changed millions and millions of lives, including his own, and eventually mine.
All change begins with changing your thinking, is what Dr. Peale believed, and you asked God for help when you couldn’t do it yourself. That’s the process of transformation Tammie Temple is undergoing right now. It’s incredibly inspiring and you can see it all happen right here on Guideposts.com. You can even join in.
Now if it would only stop raining…
Edward Grinnan is Editor-in-Chief and Vice President of GUIDEPOSTS Publications.
