Powerless

You might think, by the title, that this will be a really deep piece about faith and certain inabilities.

But, as those who know me in real life have probably suspected, it's really just a word that sums up the state of our house for almost three days last week. We simply had no electricity!

(Although I do feel a twinge of conviction when I realize how much trust we place in it...)

We had a series of WICKED storms pass through on Tuesday night. We were obviously not right in the centre of their path though; areas not far away got hit WAY worse than we did. We had one sudden, heavy downpour that lasted a while, but no hail, and despite the strobe-light lightning, no real CRACKS of thunder, though the house did its share of vibrating. But after the storm, came the wind. Fierce winds all day Wednesday, and pretty strong winds all day Thursday, too. This too, was not the worst we've seen, but clearly, in combination with the previous night's storm, did far more damage to power lines than we've ever experienced before. Large areas for miles around were affected.

Ours went out sometime between noon and 2:00 Wednesday afternoon, while the girls and I were skipping the last day of school's family hotdog lunch and awards ceremony. We were merrily enjoying lunch at Tim Horton's and obliviously running errands in town. Because it was sunny out, it took us a while upon returning home, to realize our power was out. Naturally, the expectation was it would be on in a few hours.

It wasn't.

It didn't come on the next day either. At 10:00am Thursday, hubby brought over a generator his boss-friend loaned us and we could at least plug in our fridge, freezers, and sump pump (emptying which by hand had been a losing battle overnight and for the first time ever, the carpet in our basement bedroom got wet). That provided some relief and peace of mind, but being out in the country, being powerless also means no running water.

That afternoon, we eagerly accepted a friend's invitation to shower and eat a cooked supper at their house! We stayed until well after the girls' normal bedtime and hoped and prayed on the way home that the power would have been restored.

It hadn't.

Friday morning we dithered around the house and I washed a bunch of dishes outside on the picnic table in a bucket of cool rain barrel water. We headed to town to run a few more errands and met The Man for lunch. It was a longer time than expected in town, but when I finally turned the last corner onto our road home, my heart LEAPT at the sight of two power company trucks!! On MY ROAD!

Yes, our power had finally been restored. According to my newly flashing bedroom clock radio, only about 7 minutes before I got home. I merrily went around the house, plugging things back into wall sockets, cleaning up extension cords, turning off the generator, and resetting clocks. For the next couple of days, I happily caught up with laundry and the mountain of dirty dishes and other tidying up that kinda got forgotten during our blackout.

You just don't know how much fun that can all be until you haven't been ABLE to do it for almost three days!!