Friday, July 13, 2007

Friday The 13th

We got the bedroom painted last night, a lovely shade of blue-gray called Dockside Haze. Our reward? Sleeping in E1 & E2's bed with the pink canopy. So fancy and special.

I fell asleep with visions of my free Friday morning dancing in my head; I was going to put the room back together as best I could so the only thing left to do tonight was to move the heavy furniture. I was going to pay special attention to NOT returning any of the clutter we'd accumulated (the magazine stacks - my word). Maybe I'd have time to clean the kitchen floor and vacuum as well before I had to head out to the campground and gather up my children and all the gear they brought out there.

And then morning arrived.

"Some thing's beeping," I mumbled to Rob.

There's a thing, I don't know what it's called, here at the computer that keeps things going for a bit so you have time to properly shut down when the power goes out. It beeps to alert you that the power is out and you need to shut down.

The power was out.

So, on my blissful morning alone I was up at 7am - unable to sleep in such utter and complete SILENCE.

The silence was loud.

There are breakfast people and non-breakfast people. I am a breakfast person. Don't talk to me before I've had my breakfast unless you're prepared to handle the fall-out. With the power out, my choices were limited - I ate a couple of handfuls of dry cereal and headed to the shower.

Afterwards, I began removing all the painter's tape from our room. As I was working, I started mentally tallying what things I'd be able to get done with no power, and speculating what I could do when those items were scratched off the list. A McD Bacon Egg and Cheese - yeah, that's what I was going to get when I was done! Then, I was going to head over to the mall so I could wander around all the stores I've never been in because I don't want to drag the kids in with me...and then maybe I'd see if my mother-in-law was free for lunch.

I needed an outlet plate thingy, so I grabbed the post office keys and set off walking to the hardware store. The post office had it's doors flung wide open for light and air, but my mail was in the box. Through rain, sleet, snow, and power outages...

The hardware store had it's front door propped open as well, and the employees were sitting around the entrance in lawn chairs, drinking coffee that one of them (who had power at home) had brought in. They were kind enough to give me a soda from their cooler, share their oatmeal cookies, and offer me a chair, so I stayed and chatted. You wouldn't believe the number of people who walked in to the dark store with us all sitting around the entrance who asked, "Are you out of power?"

Using a flashlight, I got my outlet plate thingies and they wrote them down to bill us later. With my soda finished, I headed back home to finish what I could. I was a bit disheartened by the two piles of bedding that I was planning to wash today, but I had a Plan for my day. The laundry would wait! Back to work so I could be off to the mall!

About fifteen minutes into my work the power returned, which, great....but I was really looking forward to my plan B.

Hopefully I'll at least catch a nap now that it's not so QUIET.

2 comments:

Glenda said...

Yay on the newly-painted bedroom.

When our power goes out at night, the loudness of the absolute silence immediately wakes me up. And I immediately start sweating because I know the A/C and the ceiling fan are off LOL ;-).

Daisy said...

Sometimes a power outage is a blessing because you get so much done! I get a lot more done when the computer is off and not distracting me.