It is not entirely uncommon for mornings to begin a little off kilter (to say the least). Today was one of those mornings! As I’m laying in bed (with more and more boys joining me by the minute) trying to decide if the twins were asleep enough for me to peacefully get out of bed and sneak in a shower . . . . suddenly, pop. Nothing loud, just a defining noise that means all ALL of the power is off! UGH! Here we go again.
We live in the sticks and if there is any wind at all, we will lose power. There’s frequently wind and this would mark the need to get out the generator. That’s right, we own a generator. That may not seem like a very odd thing, maybe I’m strange, but I have never lived anywhere that the power went out often enough to warrant the purchase of a generator. Granted, we don’t have a lot of space for it to power, so we can easily get all the necessities up and running. Two cords go into the kitchen, one for the microwave and griddle and another for the fridge (hello, I still have 6 kids to feed). Two more cords go into the living room, one to power the pellet stove and telephones (incidentally then my dsl works too haha) and the other cord (do not laugh at me) powers the tv and satellite box and voila I am cozy!
The timing was interesting, we had a guy come out to work on the pellet stove yesterday since we never could get it to warm up even 2 square feet last year, let alone the 1500 sq feet it is supposed to be able to heat (wait, we only need it to heat 1000 square feet). Anyway, we learned all sorts of new and interesting things about this model, and of course it was simply a couple of “doors” that needed to be closed (and it cost me how much?)! So since we had him out here anyway and the 2 second job that was required to get the thing working right was going to cost us an arm and a leg we figured we might as well have him install an igniter thingy to make it worth our while. It works like a dream now.
So . . . back to my story, here I was thinking “OK now what?”. The power is out and I have three kids to get off to school and 6 kids to try to feed and nothing is ready for a power outage. A few seconds later I hear the telltale footsteps of our oldest son tromping through the house to come and inform me that the power is out. The second I hear him at my door I said “I know” and he went off to begin lighting candles. The power outage only lasted for about an hour or an hour and a half today – very short considering the “norm”! Just long enough to make sure I didn’t get my shower and that the kids got a very strange breakfast. Just long enough for Son1 to get the generator out of the garage, but not hooked up. Just long enough for the boys to almost miss the bus in all the confusion. Just long enough to cost me lunch money for all three of the older boys. Just long enough to throw my day off kilter.
So here I am . . . it’s Tackle It Tuesday . . . another boring project though – laundry, so I won’t bore you with it. Oh, did I mention that breakfast for the boys was graham crackers and yogurt? Yup! Since the oven wasn’t working I couldn’t make granola or hot cereal or toast (we don’t own a toaster, it would take me all day to make toast for 6 kids, so we cook it in the oven under the broiler – 12 slices at a time). We improvised – not well maybe, but we improvised.
It’s funny how something like that can make you feel almost a little dazed and confused. Granted, it doesn’t take much in my world, but I don’t like the feeling. I would love to be able to offer my wonderful readers great anecdotes for life and encouragement for their day and wisdom to carry with them, but today it is a saga . . . a long and boring saga of the perils of power outages.
So until another day . . . .