What a difference a year makes!

Last year on this exact day all the wonderful technologies in our home that require electricity went dark. And they stayed dark for 7 long, agonizing days.
A ice storm hit in the morning & by 9:00 am - there were no comforting "hummmms" from various appliances in our home sucking down the gold that I like to call electricity.

And I never dreamed we would be without the common conveniences in life (not to mention HEAT) for 7 days.

And we had to depend on the kindness of others for those pesky creature comforts like hot meals & laundry.

Every day I became more & more desperate. Call me spoiled, but I can only HOPE you never have to endure the hell that we went through. Heating a pan of water on the kerosene heater to brush your teeth & wash your face?! No clocks?! No tv?! (oh the humanity!). No hot meals?!

We did have kerosene for heat. And you can't leave those things running unattended. The house got down to 50 degrees during the day. And when you get home from work - ya gotta fire up the kerosene. And it ain't instantaneous people - these things take time. And by bed time - our home was back to a manageable temperature. Usually 65-68 degrees.

And my smart hubby got the generator hooked up. So his poor wifey could have tv so she didn't go TOTALLY insane. However - the generator can only run so much at a time & not get over loaded. Like my tv... & that's it. I do have my priorities...We have a well that provides water. And no electric means no pump to pull the water from the depths of the earth. And it also means no hot water.

But again - my B-rad came through. We would shut off everything (including my bff the tv) to allow the generator to use all its abilities (& a full tank of gas) to heat the water. Then he'd shut the hot water heater off & turn on the well pump so we could take showers. And I was giddy from the thought of a hot shower. Alas, I got sloppy. And forgot that when he was heating water you can't run anything else. I forgot that I couldn't flush the toilet at the same time (how dare I?!) . It was too much for the generator & it shut down & B-rad yelled at me. Sniff, sniff... Rookie mistake...

Brad's birthday is Feb. 1st. And we were still without power that day. We didn't do anything for his birthday. We missed a superbowl party. I just wish that I would've been blogging back then. It would have been a wonderful outlet for my rage & desperation! (No worries - I took my laptop other places & stole their electric to charge the battery. I would've been fine...)