Our power went out last night around 1 am, flashed back on at 5 for about an hour, and then went out again at 6 am. So we have been without power all day. While I know that many people go with no electricity for the majority of their lives, I didn't realize how inconvenient it is!
The most unexpected inconvenience: a cold toilet seat. Shocking.
Preparing food is a whole different ball game. We had lots of leftovers in the fridge that needed to be eaten today, but no microwave to heat them. Reheating things like casseroles can easily be done on the stove, but reheating leftover pizza with no microwave or oven is tricky business. We got creative. Keeping food cold is another trick. The freezer has stayed pretty well frozen, so we just won't open that for now. If the power stays out for too long, we'll put stuff outside, but for now we just transferred the most perishables to the snowy location. I have no idea, however, how we would keep food cold if it was not winter.
It gets dark around 5 pm. I would go to bed a lot earlier if there were no such thing as an electric light. My regular forms of entertainment are all null and void. No electricity means no movies/TV/X-box. No internet means no facebook, blogging, pinterest, texting, etc. No light makes reading incredibly difficult (candlelight just doesn't cut it). It's even difficult to clean, straighten, or organize with no lights. Eric asked if there was such a thing as installed carpets before electricity because you couldn't vacuum them.
If I lived without electricity (especially the internet) I think I would be much more productive and creative. I would probably be more crafty. Maybe I would take up knitting. I would probably become more exact in my food preparation because leftovers are both difficult to store and reheat without electricity. My house might be cleaner. Then again, it might be messier because it takes longer to do a lot of things.
The one other major inconvenience is the cold. Whenever John sleeps, we have a small heater running in his room. Even though he had many layers of clothes on, he took a much shorter nap today because his heater was not on. I'm not sure how well he would sleep tonight if we were home. I took a nap and did not want to get out of bed because it was much warmer under the covers. We turned on our stove burners for a while to keep the kitchen warm, but apparently you're not supposed to do that for very long because of Carbon Monoxide or something. I really wished that we had a fireplace in our house today.
I am incredibly grateful for all of the conveniences that come with electricity, but I am even more grateful for friends. After spending the whole day keeping warm and hanging out under blankets, we decided the electricity wasn't going to come back on today and abandoned ship. We are over at Matt and Kari's now. John is sound asleep with a heater in the room. Eric is playing video games with his friend. I am blogging and hanging out with Kari. We are warm, comfortable, and have the many conveniences that come with electricity. It's pretty great.
Best part of the day is that I have had more time to take a moment to consider all of the blessings that God has given me. Sometimes, I forget about them or take them for granted, but He still chooses to give them to us. Hopefully, in the future, I will remember to take the time to give thanks for all of those little blessings.
