Thursday, July 12, 2012

Birthday , Heat, and the Wonders of Electricity

Our birthday dawned . . . hot. As always, the predicted temp was one of the hottest of the month. This time it was a melting 98F, which turned out to be entirely correct. So, we decided to stick around and keep cool. So, we watched some of our birthday movies, had ice cream, ordered pizza in for dinner and got our presents in the AC. What a surprise! Mom and Dad gave me a throwing tomahawk! I am so happy! I am working on making a sheath for it now. It is going to be green and black and I beaded a medallion for decoration that has a shamrock in the middle! Ah, well . . . who cares if the Indians didn't decorate in the Irish motif. ;o) Speaking of Irish - We watched another birthday movie after dinner. Luck Of The Irish with Tyrone Power and Anne Baxter. It is my new favorite. Gramma gave us Amazon giftcards and I really wanted to buy Luck of the Irish, but it only comes in a ten-movie set. So, I finally decided to get myself a frivolous present and that is what I ordered. Man! Am I happy I did! How much fun to just pick stuff I wanted, regardless. :o)



We had plans to go down to Columbus and see Laura on the big screen on Friday night. Sadly, a super storm appeared two hours before the movie. Half an hour after it came, we lost power. At 5:18pm (like the good detective-in-training that I am, I figured this out by deductive reasoning. That is, with a little help from my little electric clock that stopped. heehee ) We sat around in the back room upstairs and did a few crossword puzzles and I managed to work on my beaded medallion a bit more before it got too dark altogether. We went to bed at 9pm, still in the dark and hot. No power or telephone when we woke up in the morning. At least we had pulled several gallons of drinking water and a few containers for flushing the night before. However, no water is really rotten. We all got dressed and went up to Mansfield and ate breakfast. Took a nice, leisurely time about it. Even got to have coffee! Then we went grocery shopping. Since everything in our fridge and freezer was probably fighting for it's life, we got stuff to make for lunch, dinner and breakfast that didn't need chilling or could last in the cooler.

Came home, still no power. So we rushed into the fridge and pulled out a bunch of our meat substitutes because Mr. House had room in their chest freezer. We spent a bit of time outside picking up some of the debris in the yard. Branches and twigs everywhere! But, I got overheated and came back in. No way to cool down since there wasn't even cold water. Dad drove down to the lake and filled twenty more containers for flushing water. We all mainly hung around all afternoon and evening, trying not to get hot or drink a lot. Went to bed a soon as it got dark. Too hot to really sleep, so Sarah and I talked a lot. Around 3am, the phone rings! It was the power company telling us that they thought our power was back on. It wasn't. Back to bed, but this time we inspected the countryside from our windows. Two neighbors had power. Promising. An electric company truck drove by, shining a spotlight at the tops of all the poles. Then around quarter to five, the little light I have hanging next to my bed flashes on to half power. Just glowing yellow. Our mini ceiling fan is also turning slowly. This show real promise! So, I got up and turned off all the lights upstairs that had been turned on accidentally. At 5:10am, it came back on! The AC units beeped, the fan started up full swing and lights came on. We all made a bee-line for the bathroom and I filled a gallon jar with cold water. Then we all went to sleep for two hours with the AC on. Sarah and I woke up about an hour before Mom and Dad, so we took showers, did all the dishes, refilled the jars of water (just in case) and even did a load of laundry. Then we all got dressed and drove down to Columbus to get some groceries. (Funny, isn't it? We stayed at home when the power was off and went out when it was on. ? ) They were saying more storms by 4pm, so we came home after lunch. Weren't home long when Mr. and Mrs. Keultjes showed up! What a surprise! They had tried calling, and figured we didn't have power (or phone. It was still down), so they came down with a birthday desert for a visit! She also brought some of the most beautiful flowers in a little blue and white creamer. OH, were they lovely. I managed to keep them until the following Saturday, before they really looked poorly. I washed up the creamer and am going to bead the flowers so we can put them in our bedroom. It was a really nice visit. Always wonderful when we get to see them.



Or phone didn't get fixed until yesterday (13 days later), but we have only had a few power blips during the following week. God really blessed us with the power only being out for 36 hours. Some people had it much longer. Now we aren't quite taking for granted the privilege of flipping a switch and light comes on, or turning a faucet and getting water.

"There will be a shelter to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain. - Isaiah 4:6

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