The One with Strategically Placed Blankets

If you think we keep our house cold at 62, you would have died last night.

Our town was not spared the storm that has been sweeping the nation.

Literally.

We had winds of 50 mph for at least 12 hours straight.

It was intense.

(Of course we didn't get any snow which is just plain lame.)

Around 2pm, right after I posted yesterday about our little space heater the power went out.

Everything shut down.

This has happened before, but it's been a flicker.

After about 45 minutes of no power, we realized we might be in this for the long haul.

We gave the electric company a call to report the outage.

And then we tried to come up with stuff to do before daylight ran out.

Which conveniently happens around 4pm.

First we pulled Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring off the shelves.

We had started Sense and Sensibility but I was wasn't getting into it.

At least not having to read Austen's work out loud.

Man, are her sentences ever loooong.

I was in the mood for more hobbitses.

After an hour or more of reading (what a great book!) we pulled out a game.

I told Kevin he could pick any game and teach it to me.

You see, he's a strategy guy and I'm not really a strategy girl.

At all.

Risk or even Monopoly are like torture for me.

But I wanted to learn.

And I wanted to try and appreciate something new.

So he pulled out Stratego.

It's a two person game centered around a "capture the flag" theme and not difficult to learn.

(I get lost after 5 instructions.)

We had a blast playing for around an hour or two.

We hung a flashlight from the ceiling lamp in order to finish the game.

I did a decent job of disabling my husband's superb prediction skills.

(He can keep track of every move I make I swear.)

He had never seen a strategy like me.

That's probably because I had none.

We decided to head to Taco Bell for dinner.

As all of our kitchen appliances are so conveniently electric.

Taco Bell and most of Telegraph Rd. businesses were also out of power.

We went to the mall food court but they were closing early.

We finally stopped in at Wendy's.

I think everyone was at Wendy's.

When we returned home at 7:30pm we went straight to bed.

Seriously, it was so dark and so cold in our house that we knew the bed would be the best place to keep warm.

I put on long underwear and kept my socks on and jumped in bed.

We lit a few candles and turned on my new "robotronic" book light.

Yes, it's called "robotronic."

And then I read Hobbitses (The Fellowship actually, we still call it Hobbitses) for the next hour.

Kevin started falling asleep around 8:30.

Which I thought was hilarious.

So by 8:40 we were both asleep.

When his alarm went off at 5:30am we decided it was pointless to leave the warmth and remained in bed for the next 2 hours.

Meanwhile, he got two subbing calls but the system was refusing to "talk" when he picked up.

I was irritated.

He got a third subbing call but it was at a school we have no idea how to get to and with no internets he had to turn that one down too.

Back to sleep we went.

At 7:45 he received a fourth call to sub at the local high school for a SCIENCE class.

"Accept it!!!" I shouted excitedly.

He was hoping to get "in" with the science department.

This was such a blessing for so many reasons.

It was mostly daylight by this time so it was easier to get ready and for me to through a lunch together for him.

He headed out the door looking oh so professional in his new blazer.

I then needed to figure out how to stay warm and occupy my time for the day sans electricity.

I ended up heading to the mall and got a pass for "mall walking."

Yep, that's right.

Me and a bunch of people my parents' and grandparents' ages were power walking before mall hours.

I was kind of excited to be able to leave the house.

Thanks, Gramma, for our little Escort!

After 50 minutes of exercise I got back home and found the garage light was ON!

OH MY GOSH!

The power was back!

After 17 hours of no electricity.

No internet.

No television.

No oven.

No microwave.

No computer.

No lights.

No clocks.

No phones.

No heat.

Our power was BACK!

I quickly checked the thermostat.

It read 48 degrees.

We're talking Fahrenheit, people!

WOWZERS!

No wonder we were freezing!

But all the time our power was down I didn't complain.

I prayed.

For all those electrical linemen working in the bitter cold wind.

To get my power back on.

Men like my Daddio.

I hate the thought of anyone having to work in those conditions.

But I'm so thankful they do.

Thanks, Dad.

Thanks, other peoples' dads, for getting my heat and internet and phone back.

When Kevin got home he was beaming.

This guy had had a great day!

He was thrilled.

He was doing what he loves.

He had actually taught chemistry classes all day.

And the teacher (who had stayed home with is sick daughter) talked with him early on and gave him the go-ahead to instruct the next lesson.

And then the teacher came in at the end of the day (to coach basketball) and they talked for a half hour.

Kevin told his story.

The teacher said he'd put Kevin's name on his "favorite sub to call" list.

And that he'd also have the county's Young Life directors get in contact with us.

(As it came out that Kevin and I are youth directors.)

Awesome.

Seriously, God, could you bless us any more?