Monday, July 9, 2012

You can't always get what you want …

but you get what you need.

I'm not exactly sure why the Universe thought I needed nine days without electricity. During a heat wave. With four huge broken pine trees littering my front yard. And in the midst of all of that fun I broke my glasses.

Yeah, if it ain't one thing it's another.

And I'm not exactly sure why the Universe thinks I don't need water. Our water pump may be on a different trunk line that the linemen haven't gotten to yet, or lightning might have struck the pump or maybe I just need to trot down the hill to reset the circuit breaker.

But I'm grateful for electricity and air conditioning and even television, something I rarely watch but enjoyed for an hour last night.

We're very fortunate that my elderly mother-in-law was only without electricity for a couple days and that her water was on during the entire outage. We've been able to shower and do laundry at her house, and we're carrying water in to drink and flush toilets. She lives 12 miles away, and stayed with a friend the first couple of days, until her power was restored. 

[Note: I've resisted using the words "power" and "electricity" interchangeably this week. They don't mean the same thing. But you will get very tired of reading the word 'electricity' so I am going to mix it up a little. Many thanks to Faith and Faith's mother for making the distinction.]

We had no property damage, other than the pine trees. It could have been much, much worse, and many are still without electricity in my tiny little blip of a town in the Middle of Nowhere. I'm grateful for so much, especially my smartphone and its 3G connection to the outside world. And a car charger. The landline went out the second day.

I continually got updates on restoration of service from the FirstEnergy website, stayed in touch with family and friends through Facebook, e-mail and text, found out where gas, ice and water were available and so much more. All from the little gadget in the palm of my hand.

Right now, even though I have much more to say, I have to go figure out the water. This post, therefore is …

TO BE CONTINUED

2 comments:

denise said...

Hope it's just a simple reset and you're up and running again with your water!

If not, I'm afraid you'll pretty much have to acknowledge what we (both of us) have long suspected - that you're practically Superwoman (or maybe Wonder Woman) - as they say God doesn't give us more than we can handle, and it's clear he thinks pretty highly of your abilities across the board!

Nonetheless, I'm hoping that you can put away your super powers and get back to your regular existence soon!

Diandra said...

Think of this as your reenactment experience of the year.

Day Last

 Mike finished his chemo yesterday. The cumulative effects of four rounds beginning in early July are making him pretty uncomfortable, and t...