Well after my last post I did go shovel my driveway. I sure am glad it isn't very long cause it sure is wide. Actually I kind of had fun doing it, I must be delirious from all the snow. After the driveway I fed the critters, made dinner, then settled into making cookies with my kids. (see photo one)We were half way through baking a huge batch of chocolate chip cookies went out went the power. I was hoping we would be missed by the power outages this time, but I should really know better by now.
Well my kids tend to feakout when the power goes off. My daughter worries about every little thing. Mommy what if this and this happen. My son feeds off her emotions and goes into crazy run through the house like a wild man mode. I am trying to stay calm so as not to feed their energy with out killing them. So I pulled my cookies out of the oven thankfully they were done. I put the remaining dough in a bowl and stuck it in the freezer for a later date. I did my dishes before the water heater lost all its hot water and settled in on the couch with my hubby. The kids finally chilled out and snuggled with us. It was kind of nice.
My husband called the power company they said there were 100 homes in Hillsborro without power. He didn't think that was too many so he decided to wait to build a fire thinking they would get to us soon. At bed time I asked if we should stay up and build a fire even though I was so sleepy. He said no so off to bed we went with lots of blankets.
We woke up to still no electricity, so we snuggled under the covers with the kids till it got daylight. Once we could see what we were doing I layered the kids in long johns and sweatsuits, and headed downstairs. It was bananas, cereal and peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast. I got to work cleaning out the fridge. I placed all the freezer stuff in our big deep freeze in the garage. luckily it all fit, cause it is full to the top. I put all the fridge stuff in stryofoam coolers that I have brought home from the office( we get vaccines in them) I then put ice packs in the coolers, my fridge thermometer inside and packed snow around it. (photo 2) Everything stayed very cold. While I was doing this my husband was carrying in arm load after arm load of firewood and getting a roaring fire going. It was 57 degrees in the house when we woke up and it quickly rose to 64 degrees. We were quite comfortable. I headed out to feed the critters after that was done I told my husband that I thought I had things under control so off to the office he went.
I spent the morning organizing all of our magazine racks, while the kids played puzzles and games. At lunch time I heated some food in the camp cooker(see photo3). It is very handy. You put your food inside and hold it into the fire place to cook your food. It has a very long handle. The object next to it in the photo is for roasting marshmallows or hotdogs. Nice tools to have around. Anyway one of the things I heated up was so left over gingered carrots. My son took one bite and gagged and vomited up part of his lunch. At least he wasn't sitting on the carpet. So as I cleaned him up the electricity came back on. Yeah! It stayed on for a little over an hour. In that time the heater rose the house temperature to 68, but I didn't let the fire go out just yet. I did my dishes and washed my son's pukey clothes then settled into blog. I was almost finished with this blog when the power went out again. Glad I still had the fire going.
I could see the downed power line laying in my bean field so I called it in. The recording said they hoped to have 90% of people restored by midnight and the rest the next day. I figured I was low on the totum pole now so I settled in for another night of no power. I was so proud of myself I was able to keep the house at 67 degrees. It was almost hot near the fireplace. I carried in more wood and fed the critters before dark. My husband stopped by a local restaurant for us and brought home a nice hot dinner. It was nice to eat by oil lamp light. We settled in on the couch and the kids played by the fireplace (photo 4). It was a fun time. I had noticed and AEP truck sitting in my neighbors drive for the past 4 hours so I figured they were waiting on a lift truck to come and sure enough it did around 8:30pm power was restored. I was surprised it was so soon. I was little disappointed I was having a good time with my family with no T.V. video games ect. to distract us. Something we should do more often. The ice and snow storm of 2009 was actually fun, but I am grateful for power.
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