The Friday Five Good Things

 Five good things that happened this week.

1. More storage boxes arrived. I made good headway in the studio cleaning/organizing

2. The Little Princess didn't feel like cooking so Himself went and bought a rotisserie chicken, potato salad, and macaroni salad.

3. I made the pizza dough. Waited for it to rise. Preheated the oven. Hand-stretched the dough on the pizza stone. Spread the sauce, mozzarella, and peppers on top. Was waiting for the oven to get to 400 degrees and we lost electricity!

The outage was small and didn't effect the whole town. Himself went to the grocery store and brought home dinner. Cold rotisserie chicken, potato salad with egg, pasta salad. He also bought Hershey Kisses so we'd be able to make it through. The electricity came back on about two hours later.

4. After two weeks, a play day at Teague's. We talked about another trip away. Maybe the first week of August. Not sure if we're going back to Ogunquit or maybe trying a place on Lake Winnipesaukee in Wolfsboro, New Hampshire

5. Calli was very excited when a new friend came into the yard to play. The baby looked a little lost and started walking down the side yard toward the road. I called to him/her, "No, Baby, not that way." S/he froze. "Where's your mama?" The baby turned and walked back into the woods. I hope the Little One was okay and met up with his mama.

How was your week?

The Friday Five Good Things

 Five good things that happened this week.

1. The Knights of Columbus at St. Mark's Church are once again doing a drive by fish fry on Fridays during Lent. Woohoo no cooking!

2. The electricity went out and came right back on. Whew! There was only 9 hours of backup on the battery because the Grid never charged the battery due to the weather service calling our Winter weather an advisory instead  of a warning. I thought they did

3.  Realizing we were in the Lenten season, time to watch a bunch of Holy movies. First up, Ben Hur with Charlton Heston

4. We found the 1952 version of The Miracle of Fatima starring Gilbert Roland. I haven't seen this movie in decades.

5. Play day with Teague.

How was your week?

The Friday Five Good Things

Five good things that happened this week.

1. Sunday was National Ice Cream Sandwich Day. I bought ice cream sandwiches on the last shopping expedition. We've been enjoying them this week.

2. Picked the first zucchini of the season and made a batch of zucchini muffins

3. Because of tropical storm Isaias, the electricity went out around 6 pm.  We had sent out for Five Guys at lunch, before the storm got started so in case we did lose electricity, we wouldn't have to cook. No one wants supper after the big Five Guys lunch. The solar battery kicked on and by being conservative with what was running (using the micro, the toaster oven, the AC use too much electricity) we were able to keep the sump pump humming and phones, iPad's and laptops charged.

4. The electricity came back on at 4:30 PM August 5 and not August 7, Friday at noon as predicted. The Powerwall was a good investment. It worked well and I'm glad it was Summer. In Winter we might only be able to limp along for a day as the sun won't be high enough to power the solar panels or recharge the Powerwall.

5. Anne of Anne's Creative Cornucopia called to let me know she was okay and had made it through the storm.

How was your week?

The Friday Five Good Things

Five good things that happened this week.

1. Traveled the backroads home from Enders. Beautiful scenery and little traffic.

2.  Caught up on all the shows I missed while I was a way. Supernatural, Prodigal Son, Emergence, and Evil 

3. Someone in a white car let me back out of the driveway!😮 Driving kindness is an oxymoron in Massachusetts.

4. Looked for new lighting for the office.

5. High winds knocked the electricity out on Halloween. I didn't do storm prep. Hooray for National Grid for restoring power within an hour. And I filled up a couple of buckets of water just in case.

How was your week?

Oh, Bother

Two storms converged one from the West and the remnants of Tropical Storm Phillipe coming up the East coast. Just in case, I did a bit of storm prep. Filled up the water buckets so we could flush the toilet. Completely forgot about filling up pitchers for drinking water, though there were a few small bottles of water in the pantry.

The rain began Sunday afternoon and came down in buckets by late afternoon and the evening. The howling wind whistling around the eaves woke me up around 2 AM. Himself was up and it took my sleepy brain a few minutes to process, we were without electricity. I heard him banging around the garage getting the generator going and retrieving the battery back-up for his CPAP machine.

I reported the power outage to the electric company. Himself came upstairs. Bad news. He couldn't get the generator or the back-up running for the sump pump. The basement was flooded. Pooh would say, "Oh, bother." But that's not the expression I used

Nothing to be done but to go back to bed. Maybe in the morning, the electricity would be back on. No such luck. At least the rain had stopped but no morning tea. Oh, bother. Himself decided he would try to make it to the college. They had electricity.

Checking the town site on Facebook, 11 trees were down and some roads around town were impassable. The electric company had no estimate on when electricity would be restored. Oh, bother. Others reported flooded basements. At least we weren't alone. Schadenfreude.

At 12:45 PM, the electricity came back on. Happy Dance! First thing, flush the toilet. Second thing, make a cup of tea. Life is good. Of course, the shop vac wouldn't work so clean-up could begin. Oh, bother. Himself will bring a shop vac with him on his way home.

Listen

National Kid has us covered when
the electricity goes out.

I wasn't prepared for the storm. Initial forecasts predicted 2 to 4 inches of snow for my area with 4 to 8 inches south and east. We were straddling the line. Still, the storm wasn't going to be a block buster though a nuisance as it would make the morning commute a mess.

We were up at 5 AM, to listen to no school reports. There were no classes at the college where Himself teaches, but the faculty had a professional day schedule. The professional days are part of their contract so attendance is mandatory. At 5:30 AM, we saw Himself's college scroll by. Hooray, a snow day! I went back to bed.

When I woke u a couple of hours later and looked out the window, it was snowing hard.There was already a good 4 inches of snow on the ground and snow was predicted all day. I wondered if I should fill up the water buckets just in case the electricity went out. Himself didn't think the storm would be bad. Yeah, it probably wouldn't be that bad and I ignored my gut feeling.

Shortly after I finished my cup of tea, the electricty went out. I was able to navigate the National Grid site to report the outage though the site was painfully slow as electrical service in other towns began to fail due to the heavy wet snow. Navigating the Internet on the cellphone was excrutiatingly slow, too, as Verizon service dropped from 4G to my grandma can run faster and she's been dead for 35 years.

I sent a text to Red who live in the next town west and south of me. She still had electricity and she was able to check the National Grid Outage Map. Electricity was expected to be back on by 1:30 PM. Not too bad. We don't have an alternate heat source (i.e. no fireplace or wood stove). The temperature in the house wouldn't drop that quickly. Food in the fridge would be ok, too, and if the electricity was out longer, food could be put on the porch. The only issue was going to be no water to flush the toilet.

I phoned Prissy just to make sure she was ok. She was fine though wished she had had a second cup of coffee. I told her we wouldn't have long to wait before the electricity came back on.

Kudos to National Grid for getting the electricity turned on an hour before the expected time. I heard later the outage was due to a tree limb taking power lines down somewhere on my road.

So, the moral of the story? Listen to your gut feeling. (Or don't listen to Himself (-; ). The weather dudes are talking about two more potential storms for Monday into Tuesday.  After the electricity came on, I had a second cup of tea, flushed the toilet, and filled up some water buckets. Just in case.