Lights Out

Thursday night an ice storm blew through parts of MA, NH and ME. A lot of people lost electricity Thursday night, but somehow we managed to keep ours until Friday morning. That's when it ended, though. School was canceled. I hung out at the house with the kids for a bit, then headed to the mall for lunch and some Christmas shopping. Ok, actually shopping with the two kids was an unrealistic expectation, but I tried. When we got back home we played games and did play-doh until it got dark. Dave's office never lost power, so we went there color and play in his cafeteria until he was done working. We managed to keep ourselves busy by getting a late dinner out and then going back to the house to hunker down. All four of us heaped into Dave's and my bed. It didn't make for great sleeping, but we were warm.

Saturday we discovered that we could heat a little bit of our house by lighting up the 4 burners of our stove. I'm also thankful that I now live in the city with city water. Back home in Atkinson my whole family is on well water...meaning no water when your pump can't run.

By mid-day Saturday we got word that my in-laws in Lowell had gotten their power back, so we headed over there for the day...and ended up staying until Monday morning! (Thanks again, Joyce & Mark!) So, three days later, we're back in business. We seem to be having trouble with one of our breaker switches, but hopefully that won't be a big deal. Until then, I have my fridge plugged into a heavy-duty extension cord running down my hall. Not pretty, but it works. My "freezer foods on the back deck and fridge foods in the mudroom" system of food preservation also seems to have worked reletively well. Our yard is a mess and I'm not sure when that's going to get cleaned up. All in all it wasn't the worst of all situations, but a major inconvenience I'd rather not repeat!