My Favourite Things {The Power Outage Edition!}
We’ve had a crazy week here ~ weather wise, that is. In the wee hours of Monday morning we woke up to the sound howling wind. I’m no stranger to a good ol’ wind storm, but this seemed beyond the norm. Our poor old house quivered so much, we could feel our bed shaking under us. {We found out later that the gusts were up to 130km per hour.}
We weren’t surprised that our power went out soon after the wind started. But we were surprised when we looked out our window the next morning. One of our favourite trees (and the basketball hoop and pole) was lying on the ground.
Although our house and vehicles were all safe, our little island was a mess. Trees and power poles were down all over the place. We braced ourselves for a good long power outage… and it ended up being a new record for us ~ 4 days with no power.
I don’t want to sound ungrateful, for I’m sure there are still people who are sitting in candlelight as I type this with my lights on!
These past 4 days have given me a whole new perspective on things I’m grateful for. Having no power makes us stop and take life a little slower – and the most basic tasks become a much bigger chore.
So, here are a few of my most favourite things during a power outage:
1. Running water…
Oh, water, what a luxury you are… We are fortunate to have a gravity fed water supply, so most of the time we still have water during a power outage. But there were a few problems this time, and we didn’t have it for a few days. May I never take for granted the decadence of running water.
2. HOT water…
I discovered that with enough hot water, life was much more bearable (and clean!)… Now I know why people in the “olden days” were incessantly “putting water on to boil”. I spent a good portion of each day fiddling around with water!
3. My cherry red cast iron pot…
My husband gave me this beautiful porcelain coated cast iron pot for Christmas. It became one of my best power-outage friends! It worked like a charm on the wood stove. It not only simmered some soup for us, it even baked a cake! Yep… I love it.
4. Velcro rollers
Yep…ya do what ya gotta do!:) {The picture is a little bad on purpose! tee hee…}
I was able to catch up on some reading, and snuggled up to the natural light at my kitchen window and painted some more signs…
But, I must say, I was thrilled beyond words when I walked in the house last night at 5 p.m. and saw a light twinkling at me…
4 days was long enough.
Rita – I’m visiting our son and his family in Abbotsford this week. The wind yesterday was unbelievable and the weather changed so quickly throughout the day.
Good post – sometimes we forget how blessed we are in North America. BTW – beautiful spring sign! I’d love it for my mantel.
Hugs,
Heather
It is amazing how much we take for granted – living in Florida we are used to having power outages with hurricanes and tropical storms – however the worst outage we had was when we lived in the mountains of NC – 6 long days (thank goodness we had a camper we could set up in a campground down the mountain from our home – just had to go home to run the generator so we didn’t lose food in the freezer and refrigerator!) We are never without a generator now! Glad everything is fine at your house!
Hugs-
Carol @ arewethereyet
I missed you posting these past few days and now I know why. Great post on appreciation for the little things we take for granted like heat and water. Shortly after we moved into this home we had a 5 day power outage. We have outages frequently so my husband broke down and bought a small generator. He can have his computer up and running for work. We can also keep the refrigerator and freezers going. We however don’t have water 🙁 no showers or toilet flushing, so we have to haul out our camping portable toilet. I’m like you on outage days…. a great time to get some reading and craft time in.