Abundance – Nicci Carrera

From the National Weather Service Monday Facebook post.

Oh, by the way, we have a statistic for you…due to precipitation runoff since Friday Lake Tahoe’s water level has gone up about 4.8 inches. That means that approximately 16 billion gallons of water have been added to Lake Tahoe from the past 2 systems.

The next two pictures are from Harold Jones’ Facebook page.

Lake Shasta before the last storm:

and after:

According to Harold:

The lake has came up 11.88 feet since Friday. With the high inflows the lake will continue to rise for the next several days.

The other good news. Shasta Lake is 35.50 feet higher than on this day last year.

And here’s a news flash that just happened: A Powerball ticket worth $1.4 million (5 of 6 of the numbers) was given away as part of a promotion in the Bay Area. (The giveaway was just a ticket…I would say the promo value of that ticket is now really huge!)

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories-old/ci_27511378/powerball-winner-san-leandro-ticket?source=email

Three other people in other locations had all 6 numbers, and will split $564 million. What would you do with $188 million dollars?

I would set up a foundation. It would be incredibly fun to manage a huge foundation and give away money. I would hire people to do most of the work though, while I write. I formed a plan after I left my first nonprofit job in my late 20s and started to seek work that would provide a secure old age, that I would work at a corporate job until 50, write until 70 and work at a nonprofit organization again after that.

You don’t have to have $188 million dollars to do philanthropy though. According to Giving 2.0 by Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen:

Major gifts may dominate headlines, but the majority of giving still comes from individual households—ordinary people with extraordinary generosity. Even in 2009, at a time of deep recession, individual giving averaged almost $2,000 per household and drove 82% of the $300 billion donated that same year.

If you did win the Powerball, there’s another book that a reviewer said was really good with the specifics: Give Smart: Philanthropy that Gets Results. Reading the description of this book put me in a great mood. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have the problem of how to make a real difference with huge piles of money? That would be so fun.

Of course we all know happiness really comes from

within

and from love and friendship:

It’s fun to think about extravagant things one might buy as well. I think it would be fun to have a house on the beach in Santa Monica, maybe like this:

That’s only $7,299,000

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1347-Palisades-Beach-Rd-Santa-Monica-CA-90401/20484777_zpid/

Have an abundant Thursday!

Nicci

2015 is the year of abundance! To set the tone for the year, and because appreciating abundance already in my life will attract more abundance to me, and hopefully to you, I’m going to post a “Signs of Abundance Thursday” series for six weeks.

1. This car was parked in front of me at the stop light.

I don’t think I need to say anything about why this is abundant, but I do happen to know to which house this car belongs. There aren’t a lot of them, in fact, I’ve never seen a Maserati before that I know of, at least not in person. At this house, there are two new ones, a white one and a black one. I think it’s great that these people bought his and her Maseratis! Or maybe his and his, or hers and hers, who knows? I don’t want a Maserati, but it’s quite fun to imagine, and it is a sign of abundance that may mean my own kind of abundance might be coming my way soon.

2. This car was parked on a street I was walking along…another kind of abundance. I love the Zero emissions temporary plate that Tesla put on the new car. To me it is abundant that a car can be a beautiful machine and also not produce any emissions.