Truly Powerless

At my house the temperature is a balmy 39 degrees. Today, we ventured tothe library to attempt to cure our cabin fever. Erik, the kiddos and myself are all living with my in-laws. They have a gas fireplace, a gas grill and a gas water heater. We are very blessed indeed. Aside from lights, computer, cell phones, and TV-we have it good. We are enjoying living with Memaw and Papaw. We will probably gain 20 lbs since we are cooking anything that thaws. Gotta use it or lose it.

I have compiled a list of things we would do differently if we had known we would be iced in.

1. The number one thing I regret are those 6 hours of electricity we had when our power flickered and then came back on. Why oh why did I not turn the dryer on to get our load of sweatclothes nice and dry? And why did I put a roast in the crockpot?? Hello, SLOW cooker + ice storm = finish the roast on the grill. It was very yummy though!
2. Why did we have frozen berries? Nothing more disturbing than berry juice. It can fool you into thinking it is blood which creates un-necessary freaked outed ness.
3. Fill up the cars with gasoline for goodness sake!! The lines after the fact will make you cry.
4. Switched to Hula's power company. Of course, we can't do that but it sure would be nice. We will be without power for a long time.
5. Own a phone that does not require electricity. Good grief...what were we thinking??!!

I could go on and on-why do we have so many trees around our house? Why do we only own one chainsaw? However, I am mostly just grateful. Grateful all my family is safe and sound. Powerless(pun intended) but roughing it. Two of my sisters have generators now. We are not going to go that route. We can make do til next week. Those sisters are more rural and will be without power for a while. As my sister Linda put it, "This will all be a bad dream in your town and we will still be in 1850." Alas, the advantages of being closer to the big town are numerous. However, they are all warm and well fed.

My kids have truly enjoyed camping out at their grandparents. I miss my bed. I miss my animals. We go home to check on the cats daily. The dogs are taken in by our neighbors that love them as much as we do but when we go there they can't wait to see us and smooch us. I really miss my electric blanket.

We have so many trees down it isn't even funny. Our community will never be the same again!! At least 50% of the trees are downed or will have to be cut down. We have big limbs on our house but as far as we can tell, none of them went through. When our power is restored, we have a live wire from our security light in the yard. I'm praying like crazy that it doesn't kill anything. We reported it long before the big stuff hit, so hopefully they have a record of it.

I don't know if this post makes any sense or not. I'm a little out of practice at everything but charades(where mom acts out a kitty making poo in the litter box) and Go Fish. Good times. Things could be so much worse. Thank you God for family and providence.

I hope all of you are safe and warm. Be thankful for the linemen that not only do repairs in their own towns, but also travel to help other towns. They are awesome and I appreciate them so much more after all of this!!