Throwback Thursday

The Eldest 4 yrs old,, The Young One 5 mos. old, Himself a year younger than me

12. December 1992. The Blizzard of '92.

This was the storm that changed the way we rode out storms in the little dollhouse. The weather dudes as they are wont to do, were hyping the storm. Usually it works that one of the weather dude's predicted snow totals are high, one very low, and the third somewhere in the middle. All three network predictions for this storm were high. Snow measured in feet not inches.

With a toddler and a newborn, how to manage in the storm? What if we lost electricity? No heat. No hot water, no electricty to keep the sump pump singing. We could have gone to stay with my folks. Not something we really wanted to do. Himself, after talking with a couple of neighbors, decided to go to the hardware store and rent a generator.

Renting the generator was the best thing he did. We lost electricity for 18 hours. The girlies were bundled up in layers of sweatsuits, footie jammies, and hats.

Himself tried running a couple of heavy duty extensions cords to the ark of a microwave in the kitchen so I could heat water for formula, tea, hot chocolate, and soup. The microwave moaned WHOAAAA whoaaaa WHOAAA whoaaa. The interior light blazed and dimmed. This wasn't going to work.

I had a small electric coffee pot and an electric frying pan. So we took those items down to the generator and plugged them in. I was able to heat water in the coffee pot, and I used the frying pan as a bain marie to heat soup, formula, and baby food.

Prissy and her husband, invited us over. Her DH had a fire going in the fireplace in the cellar. I thought trying to keep track of an active toddler among the yard equipment and old stuff would be too much. Though roasting potatoes in the fire to keep warm did sound attractive. Prissy said though they were comfortable, she was dying for a cup of coffee. When the street was plowed and the driveways cleared, I heated water, poured it into a thermos jug and ran it over to them. They were thrilled though later complained the water had a faint Kool-aid taste to it. Can't win them all.

We got 30 inches of snow from that storm (notated on the back of the photograph). And we bought a generator for the following Winter season.