Appreciate

The reason for this blog title, is because I think I have learned to appreciate what life is like without electricity.

We had nasty windstorms on Tuesday night, which did this:

Yikes! There were 80 mph winds that did quite some damage around here. They happened to take out a mile and a half of power line. I'm talking completely snapped the power poles off of the ground, taking the power lines with them. This was about 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, and I still don't have power to my home.

At first it wasn't so bad. We just drove around the farm checking fields for a bit, then did some weeding in the garden. We were all hungry when we came home and we had to be pretty creative. You see, when the power goes out, you never know how long it will last. It's a rule of thumb that you DO NOT open your fridge or freezers, so they can keep the food chilled. I made PB & J sandwiches for Patrick and I, and my sister ate cold chicken noodle soup out of the can.

I didn't really hit me how bad it sucked until yesterday morning, when I realized that I couldn't take a shower or use the bathroom. So what does one do when they cannot use the bathroom in their house? Go outside. Yep. I grew up camping  a lot, and we often had to find a tree or bush. What the heck else am I supposed to do?

Then it got worse...I realized we had only a half gallon of bottled water in the house, which had to get me, Patrick and my sister through washing my face, brushing teeth, and cleaning the "hot spots". Thankfully the dogs had enough water to get them through the day.

So I got dressed and put my hair into a hot mess of a bun on top of my head. And that's how I went to work. Classy. I called the power company yesterday afternoon and they said it could be another TWO DAYS before they restored power. NOOOOOOOO!!!!!

My poor sister had a bunch of online classes she needed to do homework for, so she actually had to drive into my office and use the internet here all day. Then we decided we needed to go to the grocery store to get some food. We tried to make it fun and got hot dogs to roast over the fire, smores stuff, chips, and then figured we would boil water on the grill and make cup of soups. Well...we ended up just driving into town and eating out. As soon as we got to the bar/restaurant, we all ran to the bathrooms to wash our faces and hands. It was HEAVEN.

Got home and spent more time in the garden. The freezers usually only last 36 hours before they start defrosting, so we hooked up our freezer full of meat and refrigerator to the gas powered generator we have for the farm and got them cold again. We used it, grandpa used it before us, and my in-laws were using it this morning! Thankfully it's in the back of a pickup and we can drive it easily from home to home.

And my last predicament...how the HECK do we take a shower? Patrick went to check on our elderly neighbor to make sure she was ok with all of the power out. He pulls up to her house, sees the TV running and the vacuum going. WTF?! Turns out she has a propane powered generator built into her house!!! We were able to take showers there this morning before work, and it was AMAZING. And I even got to blow-dry my hair.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY, my friends, is that you should thank your lucky stars for electricity!!!!! Keep your fingers crossed for me that the power is back on when I get home-I have lots of laundry to do!!!