When the power goes out

What a storm! I watched the radar regularly on Monday. It was a nice day, but the storm was coming. It was a pretty big storm that was headed our way. The power blinked twice and then went out completely somewhere around 5pm. I couldn't follow the radar anymore. Oh well. We just had to sit on the porch and wait for it. Yes, we like to watch the storms roll over our house. We waited and waited. There was a lot of thunder, so we thought a big storm would pass over us. It didn't. We got some rain, but it was the good steady rain that the plants love. Not the let's pour it all at once and see how big we can make the ruts in the driveway kind.

E understands power outages now. D is only 3.5 and doesn't really get it yet. No, the lights won't work no matter how many times you check. No, the light won't work in the bathroom, you'll have to just wing it in the dark. No, we can't watch a movie. No, we can't use the microwave. No, we can't open the refrigerator. But we did warm up some canned soup on the gas stove and had dinner by candle light.

After that, we had to figure out a way to entertain ourselves and the kids without going nutty. I brought out an old tape player, my old story tapes, and we listened to fairy tales. Those are old read-alongs that I've had since I was little. I won't be specific, but let's just say that these tapes were probably over 20 years old. :-O They still work and the kids loved them.

Thankfully, the power came back in time for us to put the kids to bed. I got to get on the internet a bit and then the power went out again at 11pm. Great... Now how to I entertain myself in the dark? I knit by candle light. Not much light is required for this pattern as the pattern is easy to memorize. It's my own pattern too! I'll give more details when I'm done with the socks. Knitting by candle light got old really quick and I ended up going to bed early last night.

The power was still out this morning. I had to make a mad dash in the frig to get out everything I thought we would need and throw a block of ice in there. We listened to more stories on tape and ended up painting the rest of the morning. Well, we were sort of painting. It was the kind where you just need a wet brush to paint the page that has the paint already on it. It was fun and we didn't make a mess. I didn't want to make a big mess because we don't have water. We do have drinking water that I've stored in bottles, but the cistern pump and well pump don't work when the power goes out. What fun! ;-)

The power came back around 12 hours after it went out last night. I didn't get much knitting done, but E and D thought the whole thing was an adventure. Thank goodness that it wasn't that hot. I still think that we need a generator. If anything, we really need it for the water pumps.