Today we got a little trial run on going without some pretty important things. The ironic thing is that it happened at the moments in the day when I didn't really need them, but I sure realized how much we depend on them. So my morning was the usual, after the kids rush, ate breakfast, showered, cleaned up the kitchen, put on Dora for Brielle so I could do some photo editing, etc. After I picked up Caitlin from Kindergarten, I went to the fridge to get some ice water. There was NO water. I tried the kitchen faucet, no water! Great! I was really thirsty too. So I called Sam to see if he paid the water bill and he said that he had. Normally I pay the house bills, but he had to do it this month because Sam and I just switched banks to get free business checking with WaMu. Anyway, he called the city to see what the deal was and they of course didn't receive the payment. He had to mail the bills because our bill pay wasn't set up yet. He mailed it a week ago ,but they said that it takes a long time for them to get it because it has to go to Sacramento and then back to Vacaville. So they put an extension on our "turn the water off". How embarrassing! So, I normally have some bottled water on hand, but I didn't have any today! Luckily I had box drinks for our lunch and our water was turned back on 3 hours later. I'm glad I did the things that need water this morning.
So this afternoon we did homework and I decided to get started on dinner a little earlier than usual. Just as I started to dish up everyone, the Electricity went out! I thought great they've shut our power off too. But after we looked outside, we saw the whole neighborhood was dark. I was so glad I made dinner a little early or I would have been in trouble! We then had to search through the darkness for flashlights and candles. We definitely need more candles and spare batteries for the flashlights. We also realized the importance of getting a generator for long power outages. Also make sure a cell phone is always charged. Sam's phone was dead, but mine wasn't. I was able to make a phone call to a client I was meeting with tonight to cancel. After nearly 2 hours the power came back on! It was an interesting day and has definitely reminded me about how we need to be prepared in case of an emergency. It is so easy to take the things that we have for granted. The fun part was that we had a candle lit dinner with no TV or distractions. It was probably one of the nicest dinners we've had as a family in a long time!
Family Pictures
Thursday, March 6, 2008
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2 comments:
That sounds so awful!! Do you remember when our hot water heater was broken for a few days? It was horrible, although being without ANY water is much worse. I think I took a shower at your house. It's shocking when the things we are so used to are not there any more!
We've really had to think about being prepared too since we moved out here to the sticks! With all the trees around there always seems to be a tree that falls on the power lines during a storm. And every time it floods we can't use our water because we get it directly from the river. I think it's exciting to actually use our emergency stuff. (They have crank phone chargers now! I got one for Pete for his B-day and he has had to use it several times.)
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