Oh The Weather Outside Is Frightful And Inside We Had No Electricity

I woke up about 8 am this morning, and of course, I went right to where I usually go...........to my computer. I read all my email, replied to some, read blogs, checked ebay, etc, etc, and I started hearing what sounded like sleet on the office windows. By this time, it is 10:20am, and I got up, looked outside, and the ground was just about completely white! It was sleeting, and freezing to the outside of my windows.

I had not put away my outdoor rocking chairs, or decorations, so I asked Louie to help me, and here we are, carrying rocking chairs, garden hoses, and cement figures to the back of the house so Louie could put the stuff away in my shed, and get out the two sleds I put on the porch during the winter time. It was COLD!!!

We came back inside, and I took a shower, and just kind of got lazy after that. I did decide to make something for lunch, so I pulled a Broccoli and Cheese soup mix out of the cupboard and mixed that up, then added some corn, yellow beans, stewed tomatoes, and carrots to the soup. I was going to make some corn bread from a mix, and the one I pulled out of the cupboard was for apple muffins. I looked at the package, and it had a recipe for an apple cake. It called for cut up apples, and I had some that were not bad enough to throw out, but they wouldn't have been very pleasant eating since they were getting soft (I only like crisp apples, and then the peels have to be removed). While the soup was simmering, I cut up the apples, then put the rest of the mix together. I popped it in the oven, and Louie and I had some soup. It was really good! We didn't have our apple cake then, but waited til later. It turned out to not really be a cake, but more of an apple crisp. That was really good too! While I was cleaning up the kitchen, I added another can of stewed tomatoes to the soup, and I found an au graten potato mix in the cupboard, so I added that to the soup, about 3 cups of water, and I had a full pot of soup again. I guess you know what we're having for lunch tomorrow!

After lunch, we watched some tv, and I ended up watching the inside of my eyelids for awhile, then I got up and went back to my computer to see what my blogger friends were doing. I also checked my email. Mrs. D had asked me to make up a sheet with a Christmas poem on it several times, so she could print it, cut the individual poems out and put them in Christmas cards. I was doing that, and the lights went out! It didn't take long before they were back on, so I restarted my computer, and was doing the task Mrs. D asked of me, and the lights went out again! This happened about three more times, then they were out for good. We got out some flashlights, and I lit about three candles. The whole neighborhood was out, and there was a lot of ice on the trees. We figured that was why we lost electricity. I called Mrs. D to tell her that I coudln't send her poems back until the electricity came back on. I talked to her for about 45 minutes, and then Louie and I decided we might as well go for a ride and see what was going on. We rode around town, but we found out that a whole big section of town was without power. We also found out why. We saw the city crew working on cutting down some branches that were so full of ice, that they must have snapped a power line. While driving around town, we also saw lots of limbs down. Some were small limbs, but there were some rather large ones too.

Since we hadn't had supper, we thought we'd just drive through and pick up a burger. Not so. Even though our section of town was the only one out of electricity, several business had closed early due to the ice. We stopped at Casey's and found out that they had been VERY busy with food orders. They didn't have any warm sandwiches anymore, but Louie got some cold ones out of the cooler and asked them to toast them for us. They were pretty tasty!

After that, we rode around for awhile longer, then I stopped at the post office to check on Nancy's mail. The steps were in very bad shape. They had not been scraped at all. I got up to the door ok, and inside, but I was having a heck of a time getting back down the steps. The railings were icy, and my shoes had absolutely no treads on them. My sweet husband got out of the car, and let me hold his hand while I got down the steps. What a guy!!!!

We made a couple more laps around town, and decided to head home. By then, we could see that previously dark houses now had lights. When we got home, we did too. Our lights ended up being out for about two hours.

When the lights did come back on, we didn't have any cable tv, or cable internet, so I went downstairs to mend some shirts that I wear over my work shirts. My job involves working with oil and mineral spirits, so I wear a work shirt over my regular work shirt to keep from getting myself oily. I also rub my belly up against the machines, so I wear my shirts thin. I have one for every day of the week I work, so four shirts. They all were worn, so I fixed and patched four shirts. I was having trouble with my thread breaking, so I changed to a different cone of thread, and didn't have much better luck. I decided to see if I had some broken threads inside the machine, or to find out what the problem really was. I found quite a bit of lint, so I cleaned that out, and gave it some oil while I was at it too. Between the mending, and the lint cleaning, that job took me about three hours. I then had laundry to fold, so I did that, and now, here it is, 3am.

I think it's time for bed. Night night!