49 Hours

What have I been doing for the last 49 hours? Hmmm, all of it involved NO ELECTRICITY! We made it through the storm Friday night, although we did go down in the basement for a couple of hours due to the extremely high winds. Woke up Saturday morning and then....zapppp, the electricity went off at 8:00 a.m. on one of the hottest weekends of the summer.

Saturday we tried to stay cool by staying down in the rec room. Saturday night, Butch slept in the basement and I slept outside on the screened in porch with the dogs and cat. Sunday morning, our oldest son and his friend came to our rescue with a generator. We plugged the refrigerator in the kitchen, the large freezer in the basement, and a fan in the rec room into the generator. It was still hot but at least the fan provided some hot circulating air.

Yesterday I had to throw away some food that was in the refrigerator for over 24 hours without being cooled, one being my homemade pasta salad :(   It had feta cheese in it and I just didn't want to take any chances getting sick. Luckily my pasta sauce was in the freezer so I felt safer with that.

My dogs are 13 and 16 years old. They don't take the heat very well. Casey got very sick from the heat...poor baby. They follow me around everywhere so I tried to stay in one place for them to try and rest. Let's just say, when you stay in one room for a very long time, you discover things about that room. You make decisions such as needing new curtains...the old ones came down first thing this morning. You make sure each picture frame on the shelf is evenly spaced. You decide that you really don't like that candle holder on the mantle...off it comes.

I had a hard day yesterday...lots of periods of crying. My husband was at work and I was here with the dogs. I was worried about how they were feeling in the hot house. No electricity made me think about a period of time in my childhood that was rough. I cried often, particularly when my boys and husband called to check on how I was doing.

The boys and their girls made things easier. My husband took a shower at one of the boy's houses before work. I had offers for showers and to stay with the dogs at the kids houses. I got smoothies and sweet treats to make me feel better! Our containers were refilled so that we had water for the dogs and for washing our hands, etc. I was well taken care of!

This morning, at 9:00, the electricity came back on! I am so grateful! I have been a ball of fire since then. I have been cleaning like a mad woman. Something about not having lights makes you feel everything is dirty, including me! I am cleaning really good, getting hot and sweaty, before jumping into a hot shower!