Wednesday, November 1, 2017

No Power For 2 Days And Our Makeshift Halloween Party


I haven't published a blog post in a few days. There's a good reason why. We had no power. In fact, most of this blog post was drafted up while I sat at the table and took full advantage of daylight. Having no power was due to the powerful storm on Sunday night that was the result of a Bombogenesis. It was the worst wind storm I've ever been through and that includes hurricanes, blizzards, and tropical storms.

The storm was downright scary. The wind picked up around 6 p.m. By 8, it was packing a punch. It sounded like a freight train coming down the road. By the time Lisa, Coco, Sophie, and Lobo went to bed, the wind was shaking the house. Willa and I sat on the sofa with a flashlight. We were both scared. During some of the larger wind gusts, I could hear crashing and loud noises outside. I feared that something would crash through the windows or the front of the house would be ripped off.

Yes, the wind was that loud and powerful.

The lights kept flickering and we lost power at least a dozen times, but after 30 seconds to a minute, the power returned. All I could think of was Hurricane Sandy in 2012. We lost power on the overnight for a few hours. That was the last time we've lost power for any length of time.

As quick as the storm arrived, it left. By 1:30 it started dying down. An hour later, all was still. It was weird. I was stunned that we still had power and internet. I stepped outside to see if any trees or large branches were down, but I couldn't see much.

We carried on our usual morning routine. Lisa left for work around 5 a.m. I snuggled with the kids in bed. Shortly after dozing off, I was awakened by the sound of losing power. Thankfully I had the flashlight under Lisa's pillow.

I wasn't taking any chances. 

I waited for the power to kick back on, but this time, it didn't. I waited and waited. After a few minutes, I realized we had officially lost power. I sent Lisa a text to let her know. Then, I went outside. It was dark. No one had power.

I had about an hour left until daylight so I crawled back into the bed with the kids. They were all scared. At 7:30 I got up. I hadn't heard back from Lisa.


My day carried on without power. I heard back from Lisa around 11 - ish. She had called Eversource, but they didn't have an estimated time of when we'd have our power back. By this time, I had chatted with several neighbor friends. One said it would be multiple days before power was restored. Another, who had lived in the neighborhood since the 60's, said this was the first time we had ever lost power for this amount of time.

I didn't want to drain my cell phone battery too much, but I did check Facebook for updates. Apparently, this storm pounded other New England states including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. Most people who posted were without power too.

I spent the day completing housework that didn't require electricity. I was grateful that we had filled one of our trash bins for pail flushing and cooked extra meals for the kids. Lisa had purchased 2 big bags of ice the day before. We had a case of water. I had baked the day before as well. And, because we hadn't done grocery shopping over the weekend after hearing about this incoming storm, the big cooler was sufficient enough to keep our refrigerated stuff cool.

When 5 p.m. hit, I was skeptical that we'd have power restored anytime soon. Eversource still didn't have an estimated time of when we'd get our power back.

That evening, our dear friend Kim (the woman who owns this 2 family home and lives upstairs), brought dinner home. The 4 of us sat upstairs by candlelight and ate Chinese food. Towards the end of dinner, we noticed power company trucks checking out the lines in our neighborhood and on the main road. That gave us hope.

Lisa and I returned home, got out the candles, put new batteries in the flashlights and went about our evening routine as much as we could. We decided to camp out on the sofa that night with the kids. They were scared and had no idea what was going on. By 9 p.m. we were snuggled on the sofa. The kids found their preferred spots. All 6 of us slept sound that night.

Lisa got up for work around 3 a.m. No power. Still. I packed her lunch. Breakfast consisted of the pumpkin muffins I made on Sunday and apple juice. We weren't able to brew coffee. We adhered to our normal morning routine. When Lisa left for work, I kept the bedroom dimly lit with a flashlight.

I got up around 8. I was down to 20% battery on my phone. Lisa sent a text about an hour later letting me know that Eversource had sent her a text. The estimated time of getting our power back was 10:30 a.m. I was rejoicing, but not overly hopeful. The operative word is always "estimated."

I decided to pass time and do heavy duty, no-power-needed housework in every room. By 11:30, the power was still out. I took a break on the front porch where my neighbor friend surprised me with a Dunkin Donuts coffee.

Oh. Em. Gee. COFFEE! 

At around 2:30, I was in the kitchen sweeping and mopping. That's when it happened. The power kicked on. I stopped dead in my tracks. I did a happy dance. All of the kids ran into the kitchen, tails wagging, barking, and getting excited with me. They had no idea what I was getting excited about,, but that didn't matter. Mama was excited, therefore, they were excited too.

Housework, except for vacuuming, was done. I decided to put that on hold. It was Halloween. Lisa and I invited Kim and her daughter down for homemade pizza and handing out candy to the trick or treaters. I knew the carpets would get tracked up with leaves and grass.

We had an incredible Halloween night considering I only had a couple of hours to put everything together. I made homemade pizza and eggrolls and whipped up blender fulls of my Lemon Breezes. Our neighbor friend stopped by and joined us. We had a lot of trick or treaters. Towards the end of the evening, we visited a couple of neighbor friends to trick or treat ourselves.

Char gave us mini bottles of wine...

I have a lot of catching up to do. I lost 2 days of work. Unfortunately, our annual Halloween Party we had postponed until Friday had to be canceled. I have too much work to do and can't take Friday off.

On the bright side, we have power. We were able to celebrate Halloween. We made the best of it and ended up having an incredible time.

Now, it's time to play catch up for the next few days...

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