The best-laid plans

No movie after all yesterday. My late-morning workout + icy-cold weather + WVU basketball game combined to tip the scales toward staying home. We lost the game by one point, our second loss of the season, and we'll slip back down in the national rankings. It was good to be #2 for a week, though!

I roasted vegetables and sliced chicken/garlic sausage for dinner last night, which is always good and Whole 30-compliant. I needed to bake a cake (for Mike to take to his church dinner) while we ate dinner, but we ended up eating by candlelight. The electricity went out suddenly just as I was putting the cake in the oven.

It took a couple hours for a crew to arrive. Ours was the only property on our road that didn't have
power. Turned out to be a part on our electric pole that just happened to be on their truck, or who knows how long we would have been sidelined.

So that's the second time this month (and year) we've lit the candles in the fireplace. Our home is all electric, so we had no heat, and while candles aren't big providers of warmth, they do offer a bit of relief, and they're lovely to look at. The indoor temperature went down rapidly, and we were wearing two layers of clothing by the time Mon Power arrived.

(We have no idea if the fireplace has ever been lit, and we're not willing to experiment until it's been inspected. Fireplace inspection is on the 2018 to-do list.)

I had a bit of a panicky moment looking for my auxiliary phone charger. Finally found it in a messenger bag in a closet and put it to work. I'm so utterly dependent on my phone. The charger has been deposited in my purse, fully charged and ready for duty the next time I need it.

And there will be a next time.

Today is Day Seven of the Whole 30. Nearly a quarter of the way there. I feel like I have a little more energy, not so much to accomplish tasks, but having the motivation to accomplish the tasks. The empty bookshelves we moved into the bedroom were only empty for a few hours. After dinner Friday, I moved three shelves of my books from the living room to the bedroom. I normally do nothing after dinner except load the dishwasher, so I felt like that was a major accomplishment. And I didn't feel tired or cranky about it, either. I'll give clean eating the credit.

I finished reading Tips for Living and started the second (of 26) book for 2018. Goodreads is giving away a Kindle copy of Tips; click the link before January 31 to enter.

We'll get out to catch The Post soon. The coming week is pretty busy, but we'll figure it out, and since it's such a hit I imagine it's not going away from the local-ish theaters any time soon.

Today would be an excellent day to be kind.

I hate when that happens

Woke up at o'dark o'clock, glanced over at the digital clock and … nothing. All I saw was black. And that can mean only one thing: No electricity.

I grabbed my phone (to use as a flashlight) and got up, stepped on the scale – lost a pound, yay me! – and then went back to bed until dawn broke. Lit one of the oil lamps and sat in the den, knitting peacefully until it was fully light outside.

I've no idea when we lost power, only that it was sometime between midnight and 5:00-ish, when I first woke up. All the electronic devices began beeping and blinking about an hour ago.

I was reminded again of how much more comfortably I can endure an outage during cold weather as opposed to hot, as it was during the derecho. As the house got colder, I added more layers and was able to stay almost comfortable. I didn't for one minute worry about losing food from the freezer. The biggest hardship was that we hadn't stashed enough coffee in the Thermos before we went to bed.

We thought we'd dodged a bullet when we still had power last night.

That'll teach us!

At any rate … back-to-normal is find and dandy with me. I'm debating about taking a walk or a nap.

But first, I'm having another cup of HOT coffee.

If a tree falls on a power line

Mother Nature reminded us who's boss yesterday afternoon, lest we get all smug and think we're in charge. We were happily going about our business, which on Sunday afternoons usually means doing not much at all. The air conditioner kicked off, as it does during its cooling cycle, but the ceiling fan slowed down, too. One glance at the blank digital clock confirmed that the electricity was, indeed, off.

We'd had a heavy downpour and wind in the late morning, but it was 2:30 when the refrigerator quit humming. I called the Power Outage Hotline and began waiting.

The view from the porch, 7 p.m.-ish.

Fortunately the rain that had come through earlier brought with it slightly cooler temperatures. It was nice outside, actually. I grilled pork tenderloin chops and sliced tomatoes for dinner as we continued to wait.

As the day wore on into evening, we thought we might have to miss The Newsroom, which begins at 10 p.m. EDT (and is the best hour on television. Period). I'd already gone to bed, resigned to watching the recording. (A DVR programmed to record the entire season of a good show is, well, a beautiful thing.) But what's this? Lights on at 9:54!

I was one happy girl, after spending most of the day and evening not being a happy camper. I can rough it just fine, but I DON'T LIKE TO.

So. The mini-goal I alluded to yesterday? Was to put in a 35-mile week, which would have been the highest weekly mileage this year. I didn't make it. I walked way too late yesterday morning to be comfortable trying to get seven miles in. Ended up doing 31, my third-highest week since Christmas. I am, however, on an eight-day streak. Wonder how long I can keep that going? I walked a mile Saturday (after doing yoga in the morning) to keep the streak alive.

And the weigh-in? I am, officially, finally, HAPPILY overweight! My BMI dipped slightly below the obese level with a three-pound loss for the week.

Making it a total of 38 pounds for the year.

So far.

Hope your weekend was less eventful than mine. But if you weigh in on Monday morning, I hope the news was good!

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

And we're back

After 20 hours without power, everything started humming again. I wasn't here to celebrate; I was at a client's. A client who had power.

Another client meeting this morning, the gym afterward and then I need to really, really, really work on getting organized. Meal planning and decluttering are high on my list. You see, I will soon be employed.

I've worked part-time at a local garden center the last two summers, casually and only one or two days a week. But this year I'll be suiting up and showing up three days a week, doing both production (which I love) and sales (which I will learn to love). I'm excited! I've previously bartered my labor for their plants, but I'm officially on the books this year.

(This decision was a direct result of the raccoon incident. Had I been the bite victim, it would have been a horribly expensive Big Deal for the owners.)

Look what's up. I took a stroll around the garden yesterday and popping up above those winter weeds are two rows of Egyptian onions. It's so cool to see real food growing this early in the season. These onions develop "sets," which then fall over and replant themselves, giving them their other name: the walking onion. Four short rows of garlic also are developing nicely. My hope is to have enough garlic left this year to plant my own, rather than ordering new stock, which I've done for three years. We love our garlic around here.

So what else. Oh! The Blunt amendment was tabled yesterday, no thanks at all to West Virginia's junior senator, who crossed the aisle and voted with the Rethuglicans on this one. He's been called a DINO (Democrat in Name Only) and this vote truly proves it. A side note: a movement is afoot to rally in every state capitol and in DC on April 28, 2012, to protest the War on Women. If you're interested, more information can be found here.

Back to my organizing dilemma: If you have developed a meal-planning strategy that works for you and your family, and don't mind sharing it, I'd love some ideas. Pinterest has been helpful, but your personal experience would be moreso in determining if a plan will work for me. There are two hard parts to my oh-so-lovely days here in the Middle of Nowhere:

1. Figuring out what to have for dinner
2. Answering my husband's daily question: "What's for dinner?"

(He doesn't cook, yet another favor his mother never did for him. I absolutely cannot understand his unwillingness to learn, however, considering how much he loves to eat. I used to worry about his meals when I went out of town without him. Not any more. He's certainly smart enough and old enough to navigate the kitchen; the fact that he refuses to do so is not my problem. So there, honey!)

More often than not …

when a Major Snowstorm hits us here in the Middle of Nowhere, it usually is accompanied by a Power Outage. I've lived here 15 years and have kind of, sort of gotten used to anticipating coldness and darkness when we get a heavy wet snow, as we did yesterday.

Last night was no exception: The lights (and heat and water) went out at about 8:30. I reported it immediately and was told by the friendly computer voice that it was not part of a known power outage and repairs would be made 10:30 p.m.

More often than not, when the friendly computer voice gives me that initial, optimistic restoration estimate, he is WRONG.

At 2 a.m. I called the friendly computer voice to get an update. He oh-so-carefully told me we were now part of a widespread power outage and would have power by 11:30 p.m. on February 20, 2012. P.M.!

More often than not, when refrigerated food is unrefrigerated for more than 24 hours, it needs to be tossed. I spent the next hour or so contemplating what I might safely save (condiments other than mayo) and what would need to be discarded (everything else).

My cell phone rang at 6 a.m. Friendly computer voice again, asking me to press "1" if my power had been restored. I was groggy, of course, but I heard the furnace running, pressed "1" and went back to sleep for another hour.

In retrospect, we didn't suffer too much. It was a little chilly, but not too bad. It happened during downtime – you don't need or use much electricity in the middle of the night. We could have planned better, of course. Had the power not returned until tonight, I would surely have been wishing I'd filled a Thermos® with coffee. (Not having coffee first thing in the morning is the worst part of a power outage.)

Not sure if I'll make it to town today to hit the gym. Days like this are why we bought the elliptical, after all. I would happily trade a hazardous trip down my steep, snow-covered driveway for a short walk to the garage!
 
All in all, I'd say I had a pretty good weekend. Homemade pizza on Friday, a good hard workout and a meeting with a potential client Saturday and a beautiful snowstorm accompanied by an abbreviated power outage Sunday. Hope yours was good, too!