As I look out my office window and see the sun shining brightly and hear the wind howling and whipping around pretty good, I cannot believe it is the end of December and the temperatures are hitting the 50's. I suppose I should not complain about this because, if you know me at all, you know that 99.9% of the time, I am cold...even in the summer at times.
I think back to January of this year and remember that there was an ice storm that left us without power for nearly five days; others were without it even longer. Jay thought it was great. The kids and I wanted to strangle him every time he said this. He was working nights, which meant that his day consisted of sleeping, eating and going to work, and it was perfectly fine with him if he slept all day long and slept in cooler temps, so the furnace being off was icing on his perfect little cake.
The kids and I had a much different viewpoint. As in, day one, scrambling around to clean out fridge and put things in garage so that everything wouldn't be lost; getting kerosene and the kerosene heater in the house; locating the lanterns, lamp oil, candles, flashlights and putting them within reach; figuring out what to do when it came time to go to work and the need for a shower on my part. I believe the kids and I stayed home two nights and that was enough. We finally went to town to stay at my in-laws and then the kids and I slept terrible because the lights shining in the windows and door window kept us awake...we like it as dark as possible...but we had warm showers and the television...ahhh
I think it was the very last day that we decided to borrow a generator and our friend found us one. By the time we got it down to our house and hooked up, our power was back on. It sure would've been nice to have it a few days earlier, but because this power outage was so "great" we didn't need one. I think it was about the time that Jay was off nights and going to be around that the generator showed up. (haha)
I will say that I am very thankful to live in a fairly new house that is very well insulated and that we have a wood stove in the basement and a kerosene heater. With the kerosene heater, we could easily get the house up to 75 or 80 in an hour. It was warmer in the living room/kitchen area that week than it normally would be...we just had to shut it off at night and when we left the house.
It wasn't the end of the world by any means, in fact, we refered to it as an inconvenience. It wasn't like a flood or forest fire, hurricane or tornado where our home was literally destroyed or ruined beyond repair. Our community was still there. Everyone was healthy and safe. I didn't freeze to death or anything either. We still had all of our very important "stuff" and were warm, fed and clean;) It was probably a very good learning experience for my kids as well as myself. And we are glad that Jay enjoyed it so much.
I heard there were some local folks that went to a hotel that week to stay. I'm thinking if power outage #2 ever comes along, the kids and I may leave Jay at home to enjoy his solace and we'll go to a hotel with an indoor pool and hot tub. Oh yeah.
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