Thursday, February 11, 2010

Power's back!

On Saturday, we had a record-setting snowfall, about 2 feet in one day. We dug out, the kids had a 2-hour delay on Monday, and things were back to normal on Tuesday. But then we had a second snowfall Tuesday night and all Wednesday; the kids and I both had snow days declared on Wednesday and Thursday, and I was looking forward to some snug days of reading in my favorite chair next to the radiator and baking all sorts of yummies. I stocked up on all the essentials - eggs, flour, sugar, books from the library - and felt smug in my preparations. Then our power went out at 3:30 on Wednesday. And it didn't come back on.

My king cake was rising on the counter, so when it got to be 6:00 and the power still wasn't back, we decided to go over to a friend's house for dinner and to bake the cake. It would've taken quite a while to shovel out our driveway, so we walked - Eric carrying the cookie sheet with the pan. (He slipped and fell once, but miraculously saved the cake.) Just as we got to Liz and Steve's house, sighing with relief - their power went out. Luckily dinner was still hot and we were able to have a hot meal by candlelight, and we played games by candlelight. Still no power at 10:00, so we trekked home in the snow with the cake.

There are a lot of evergreens here, and their needles hold a lot of snow. With a second 2-foot snowfall, a lot of branches and whole trees had broken off. It was amazingly bright outside, with all the snow reflecting light.

We bundled up and went to bed. Still no power when we went got up, so we dug out our driveway and went out for breakfast. When we came home, the power was back on. Thank goodness! I was having visions of Life As We Knew It as well as the movie "The Day Before Yesterday."