Lights Out

Our family - kids especially - enjoy practicing power-out nights. It stemmed from an evening about 2 years ago when the power actually went out, prompting Joe in a fit of preparedness to buy 3 kerosene lamps. By the time he got home from the store the power came on about 10 minutes later, but we were so enjoying the light of the lamps we turned the electricity right back off. Ever since then we have had practice nights where, just for fun, we turn off all the lights and try not to use any electricity.

Monday was no practice. Joe doesn't work Mondays, so he was home, and we were in the middle of a very regular day doing whatever it is we regular people do. The power went out at 2:30, and we had a small celebration - woohoo! What fun! We'll have a power-out practice for REAL! The day was cold so Joe went and split more logs for the fire, but of course it wasn't even dark enough to need those kerosene lamps. The hours passed, and around 4 we were thinking about dinner (we are geezers when it comes to mealtimes), but still - no power. We are industrious, and were hungry for warm food on such a chilly day, so Joe retrieved our camping propane stove* from the attic and in out kitchen we pulled together a delicious meal of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Just to top off the self-sufficient feel we had home-canned peaches on the side. It was DELICIOUS, and made all the more so by eating by the light of newly-lit lamps.

be fooled - it looks light outside and we're the dummies who need a lamp, but really....

Using the flash you can see about how dark it REALLY was. The inside, of course, was not nearly this light (except for this one second when I used my flash).

The rest of the evening was passed uneventfully in front of a toasty fire. We played Snail's Pace Race (a new game from Joe's sister and BIL), read Esio Trot by Roald Dahl, and told stories from our own childhoods at the kids' requests. With the day dark for so long, and no electricity to tell us otherwise, we had the kids in bed by 7:00, though unfortunately Ethan had a tough time without his fan on for white noise - we'll have to prep him a few times this summer before going camping! How spoiled he is. We adults were off to bed at 8:30 ourselves... just in time for the electricity to get turned back on! Then it's like a slap in the face - only 8:30! We should stay up! We should play games! We should read books! We could work on the kitchen! But the poor Excel guys were having a heckuva time, the lights were back out in less than 10 minutes, and then we were happily back to bed without feeling guilty that we COULD be doing something productive. Hard to do drywall texture by the light of a kerosene lamp.

 *If anyone is worried that we used propane inside, well... we weren't. If we were cooking by propane in the bathroom with the door closed, 3 meals a day, YES, I think that would be a bad idea. For the nights, though, it was one meal, quick to heat, and I wouldn't exactly call our kitchen an enclosed space these days. Kitchen remodel pictures to come.