Powerless AGAIN

The aftermath of the ice storm was so beautiful, but wow, I'm glad it's over! Here's the story. On Sunday night, January 25, we got some snow, about an inch. Of course because we live in Kentucky, school was closed on Monday morning, January 26. The roads weren't bad yet, so I went visiting teaching, went to Costco and actually stocked up on some food. That night it started snowing a little more, and I knew that the next day, Tuesday, January 27, school would be canceled again. By Tuesday afternoon we were deep into the storm. I was cleaning the carpets (I had rented a carpet cleaner the night before) but my throat began hurting and was feeling worse and worse as the day went by. The boys ended up sledding with a friend, and poor Meg with her broken wrist was stuck at home with me and Molly. This ice storm lasted about 10 hours. We could hear the ice rain pellets on the windows. By 6 p.m. I was officially sick and was crying for my kids to call Rusty to come home. I think I scared them, because I was seriously in pain. My body ached, my throat killed, I had chills and I was throwing up. I took anything the pharmacist recommended to Rusty and went to bed. I woke up the next morning (Wednesday, January 28) about 8 a.m. laying in bed with a fever, and within a few hours over 600,000 homes and businesses were without power, including our home. It was only 14 degrees (am I being a little dramatic?:).

Okay, here is where the "Ensign" portion of the story comes into play. After being without power last September for 8 days, I decided I really wanted to save for a generator. The last few weeks I had been researching them online and asking a ton of questions. I had figured out the one I wanted and found if for between $800-$1,000. Lowe's had it in stock for $899 but if you applied for a Lowe's card you could get 10% off. We decided to buy it. We went out last Saturday night, January 24 (5 days before the power went off), to go and buy the generator, not knowing anything about the upcoming storm. I told Rusty that I wanted to run to Costco first. We were walking down the main aisle and there was ONE generator in a box, along with the floor model. A guy was looking at it, and we began hovering. It was a similar generator only more powerful and more awesome for only $600. I WANTED IT!!! The guy finally left and I sat on the box while Rusty went and got a flat bed thing to take it up front and buy it.

Now, back to Wednesday, January 28. Rusty couldn't make it into work--no one could. There were 2 inches of snow, with 3 inches of ice, with another 3 inches of snow on top, and it kept coming. It was crazy. Rusty put together the generator, shoveled the driveway so he could go get gas for the generator, borrowed a space heater from a friend in the neighborhood who did have power, hooked up our fridge, the TV, the space heater, a couple of lamps, charged a DVD player, 2 Nintendo DS's and one cell phone, went sledding with the boys and all the while I lay in bed and got well. What a man.

A power outage is not a bad thing with a generator. We have a gas water heater, so all baths and showers were warm and long. We had a poster-size chart in our kitchen listing all household items and wattages. Ben would just add up (we could use up to 6000 watts) and if we wanted to use the microwave we just unplugged the fridge for a few minutes. If we wanted to play the Wii, we unplugged the space heater upstairs. Although I had extension cords running throughout my entire house, I was getting this down by day three. We bought another space heater (Rusty stood in line for a half an hour on day two at a small hardware store by his work) and we put that one in Meg's room where all the kids slept and we had the borrowed space heater in my room and we were great. Meals were a little cold, but we would just bring a space heater down during chow time. My kids are still closing doors behind them, because we wanted to either keep the heat in bedrooms, or the cold out. A lot of our friends learned how to hook up their generators to the fan of the gas heater (only 700 watts) which we were about to do when the power came on at the end of day three. We were all so happy, except for Sam who screamed "Nooooooooooooooooo!!!" at the top of his lungs and drooped his shoulders. He loves to have the power out because we do more things as a family, and we are like camping out. He says it is better than Christmas.

Well, I really do feel blessed. I feel like we did what the prophet has asked and are starting to get prepared. That generator saved us. Oh, we could have gone and stayed at the Blackwells' or another friend's house, but with me being so sick, even with out power it's nice to have your own bed and toilet. I am also so grateful for my garbage disposal, my closet light, my oven, my blow dryer, my washer and dryer, my automatic garage door, my dishwasher, my computer, and ELECTRICITY... Thank you Benjamin Franklin and all the others who invented it (that sentence was Ben's contribution to this post. He just finished reading a biography about Benjamin Franklin).

Playing in the snow before the power outage. No Meg, due to a broken wrist.

It was crazy cold. . .12 degrees.

The first night everyone, (except me--I had the space heater in my sick room) slept in the living room in front of our gas fireplace.

Eating dinner. We used the generator for the microwave, lamp and space heater in order to enjoy dinner a little more.

Rusty made a ton of calls from our home office. Ben made a sign that we put on the door. It reads, "Rusty O'Brien, Attorney at Law." (In bubble letters).

Ice on our deck. Molly and Sam pulled off the ice cubs and sucked on many, many. That's not unsanitary, is it?

I was amazed that these bushes and trees came back to life. I thought the ice had ruined them.

Our poor trees. They made it out of the ice storm of 2009.

Powerless

We FINALLY have power as of 2:00 p.m. today!!! I can't believe I'm about to type this next sentence, but I'm a little disappointed. Too many blessings have come this past week, and I'm sad that a "normal" week is ahead. You know how you wish for something, and it really NEVER comes to pass? Well, I had told Rusty the night before school began a few weeks ago, "I wish that I could just have one more week of summer with the kids." I guess the Lord heard my request and I got my wish (sorry for the other 300,000 people in Louisville that had to suffer Ike's wrath).

Although I feel like this now, last Sunday I did not feel so "blessed." In fact, I have never felt so powerless in my entire life. There was absolutely nothing I could physically do to make the power go on. It was so frustrating, especially the first few days when the reality of the damage set in, and I realized it would be 7-14 days until the power would be restored (I heard this prediction from the Governor in a press conference Monday morning, on our battery/crank emergency radio). AHHHHHHH!!!!

I learned a lot about myself this week. I saw strengths in myself that I really had no idea existed, and weaknesses that, unfortunately, I've seen in the past but were magnified.

Weak Moments:

• Complained more than I should (although I had just re-read the first part of 1 Nephi and found comfort in Sariah complaining and then repenting in chapter 5).
• LOST it with Sam on day 6 with all the other kids in the van.
• Felt sorry for myself.
• Allowed fear, discouragement and anger in my mind too many times.

Strong Moments:

• At the end of day three, Rusty wasn't home, it was dark, Sam and Molly went to bed early because they were disobedient, and I just wanted to lay down and read. Instead, I played Life with Meg and Ben, and had a BLAST. My whole perspective changed, and some of those above feelings that had entered my mind left immediately.
• Cleaned out the garage AND the van.
• Studied the scriptures (not just read them).
• Learned what kind of friend I want to be, by the example of so many amazing friends.
• Developed stronger friendships with women who I have admired for years.
• Got to know my next door neighbor REALLY well (in the early morning hours we were out starting the generator or gassing it up in our pajamas).

Synopsis of the week:

Monday--took the entire contents of my inside freezer, my outside deep freeze, as well as the freezer itself and plugged it into my friend's garage. It was great, because I saved my entire freezer full of food. Thanks Traci. Meanwhile, another friend watched Molly and Sam. That afternoon was just about coping. We played a ton outside since the weather was in the mid 70's, and grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner. We finished up the night by watching RV on Rusty's laptop (mom and dad you HAVE to watch this show when you come; it will bring back so many memories). Rusty slept through the entire movie. He quickly adapted to "pioneer life" by going to bed with the sun every night. It got a little annoying.

Tuesday--Everyone woke up with a little sore throat (I think it's from sleeping with the windows open). We did a few chores, practiced the piano and then headed to McDonald's for Lunch. Afterward we went to the zoo for the afternoon. Again the weather was AWESOME. Around 4:00 p.m. we stopped by another friend's house to do some laundry. I thought my kids would just want to play her Wii or watch t.v. since they hadn't for a few days, but she was so sweet and played this fun board game with Ben and Meg while I folded clothes. She made us feel extremely welcome, and now my kids love to go to Sister Larsen's house and asked almost every day for the rest of the week if we could go back. On the way home to grill more hamburgers and hot dogs I realized (after a not-so-nice odor overwhelmed me in the van) that my kids hadn't showered since Saturday night. I decided to investigate our water situation. I heard that some of my friends who were without power had a gas water heater and, therefore, had as much hot water as they needed. I went downstairs and found out that we too had a gas water heater. SCORE!!! Too bad I didn't figure it out two days earlier so Rusty could have taken longer than a 30 second shower both days. After long showers and a little reading, Molly and Sam went to bed and Meg, Ben and I played games.

Wednesday--An unexpected trip to the doctor for Meg while Molly was at playgroup, and Ben and Sam went to a friend's. Meg and I went to lunch (Wendy's, her favorite) and then to Target to get a prescription filled. That afternoon we played on the tramp and made bacon, eggs and bagels and even chocolate chip cookies on the grill for dinner. Ben had a sleepover and the rest of us made smores on a fire pit at our neighbor's house. That evening we were blessed to plug into the same neighbor's generator. This will be an O'Brien must have in the future. This allowed me to quit doing daily trips to get ice for our few essential fridge items as well as gave us somewhere to charge our cell phones and portable dvd players.

Thursday--We cleaned out the garage and the van. I made it fun by making cinnamon rolls on the grill for a mid-chore break. After we headed to Costco for milk and lunch. We saw Rusty and his partner there buying office supplies. That afternoon we did a play date and then headed to drop Meg off at dance and watch Ben play a baseball game.

Friday--I was DONE!!! This was the day of my melt down, targeted at Sam. We headed to the park to meet some friends at 11:30 a.m. We were already running late and after driving for about 10 minutes Meg told me that Sam didn't have any shoes. That was the straw. After six days of no power, cooking everything over the grill, not having the luxury of washing sheets that had been peed on, no blow drying my hair, waking up in the middle of the night countless times to crickets, neighbors' generators, and motorcycles, and getting out of the van every time to open and close the garage door, I had had it. After my rant, the rest of the day was GREAT. We went to the park, had lunch, played, built forts from trees that suffered in the storm, rode scooters and cried to friends. Sometimes it just takes a good cry to make things better. One of my friends took Molly with her so Ben, Meg, Sam and I could go shoe, Halloween costume, and Web Kinz shopping. We ended up going to about five stores, but had a ton of fun. We picked Molly up, grabbed some pizza and soda, and headed to Rusty's office to play on some computers. We ended up staying for a few hours with each of us playing on a computer. Rusty was laughing that none of us really wanted to talk. We went home to the dark and went to bed.

Saturday--Rusty did a duathlon (I know, he left me in my fragile state), the kids and I went to Walmart to get a few groceries and donuts. Came home, practiced, did some chores and then played until it was time to go to Sam's baseball game. After we headed to the Blackwell's (Rusty's aunt and uncle's house, they just got power the day before). We did laundry, ate, and checked our email. Went home again after dark and put the kids to bed. We did decide that it was worth the gas in the generator to plug a few more things in. We plugged in a few lamps, and made popcorn with the air popper. It almost felt normal - almost.

Well, the week that started out hellacious ended up (in hind site) to be a fun experience that my kids and I will never forget (the week felt pretty normal to Rusty because he was at work a lot and had power there). I've decided that maybe I wasn't meant to handle every trial "perfectly" at this stage in the game. I handled this particular trial better than I thought I would. If someone would have said to me a month ago that I would have to survive almost 8 days without power, I would have told them "Are you crazy? I can't do it." Well, I did.

Day 1, Rusty and Molly playing Pretty, Pretty Princess.

Ben schooling Sam in the game of Stratego.

I was bored, especially the first day, and braided Meg and Molly's hair.

Side view.

Day 3, at the Zoo

Molly loves the giraffes.

Making smores with our neighbors. Molly was holding her flashlight which, and I'm not exaggerating, got dropped at least 30 times over the week, and never broke. I picked up batteries and put the thing together every time and it would magically turn on.

One of the many "Molly poses."

Sam enjoying his smore.

Meg LOVES smores, she ate three and then felt sick later.

Night 4 when Molly and Sam were "supposed to" be in bed, but were up reading by flashlight. Notice Molly's got the same light. By the end of the week we couldn't find the handle.

Day 7, Molly was bored during nap time, and drew on her wall.

Besides all the family time we got together, I was able to get my fridge REALLY clean.

Lights Out. . . Still

We have now been out of power since Sunday, September 14, around 2:00 p.m. Too many emotions, thoughts, events to post from Rusty's computer at his work (which we see as a MAJOR blessing that no power was lost since his office has only been open a month). Just a couple of quotes to tide you over until I actually do get power.

*Molly asking a stranger at Costco (where I took the kids for lunch yesterday), "Hey, can you come fix our power?" Unfortunately, he was the check out guy at Costco, but I guess looked official since he was wearing a tag.

*Sam singing a song (he composed) over the phone to Rusty, "Bye, bye, Mr. Rusty boy, I took my Chevy to the car wash but the power is out."

*Meg, this morning (the way I woke up) slamming her bedroom door, "I'm sick of stupid power."

*Ben walking into a store, "Ahhhhh, lights that work."

Thank you to many friends who have helped in more ways than you'll ever know.

I will post more later (hopefully very soon).