The man wasn’t telling any tall tales.
He called me about three minutes after leaving the house and said I had to grab the camera and the kids and walk down our road. I told him there was no way I was waking up Little Lady to take picture of some snow. He told me it would be worth it.
He also said he wasn’t sure he would be able to get to work. The roads were questionable and there were a number of trees down.
This guy sure didn’t get to work on time. I looked at this and thought how lucky we were to have power.
The serenity of the snow was overcome by Little Lady’s wailing for breakfast. The girl has found her feisty spirit; it seems to be attached to her stomach. We went in. I fed the kids, made the coffee, ran the dishwasher, threw the laundry into the dryer, looked out the window at the waves knocking the dock apart and again thought how lucky we were to have power.
Little Man watched Bambi and almost decided to become a vegetarian, I folded laundry for the first time in two weeks. We went in the kitchen for a snack and the power went out. Sigh. We talked about how we don’t open the refrigerator or freezer. We closed all the bedroom doors to preserve the heat. Little Man rejoiced that the Kindle was fully charged and settled in for some Angry Birds action. I found matches and made tea on the gas stove. It was kinda fun.
And then the temperature started dropping in the house. About a degree every thirty minutes. And then the water in the faucet was just a trickle. If you’ve never had a well, you probably don’t know that the pump that pumps the water into your house is electric. I’ve never had a well before and started doing some quick thinking about how much water was left in that tea kettle and how many bottles I may have to make for Little Lady.
By noon Little Lady was in her snowsuit inside and Little Man was happily sucking down full strength juice by the gallon. I started thinking about the food in the fridge and freezer. I scowled remembering how just the day before I had stocked the freezer with beef, chicken and fish for the month. I reminded Little Man not to open the fridge for any reason and told him we can’t flush the toilets until the power comes back on. His eyes got really wide and he said, “You mean we can’t go to the bathroom until the power comes back on?”
By two the house was too cold to hang out anywhere but the bedrooms. Hubs called on his way home at three and I asked him to bring home water. Just in case. But we won’t need it because the power will probably come on right after I hang up the phone.
Or not.
At six we reheated pizza and curry stir fry in a pan, thanking God for a gas stove. At seven, we threw long johns and super warm jammies on Little Man and tucked him in. At eight, it was no longer light enough outside to read in bed, so we bundled up in our long johns and sweatshirts and went to sleep.
At ten, I stood in our 53 degree kitchen heating bottled water in a saucepan by flashlight to make Little Lady’s bottle and thought about how blessed we are. Because this is roughing it. Not having running water, flushing toilets, a working dishwasher is roughing it. We still have clean water. And loads of good food. And a relatively warm house with a working cooktop. We are so blessed.
The power came back on around midnight. Little Lady was way too excited about getting out of the snowsuit, so the two of us had a little slow-dancing pajama party from 1-3:30. I am so glad the coffeemaker is working this morning and I can look at this from inside my warm house.
No comments:
Post a Comment