I Am Back!

I am back, baby!  

I have lights!  I have heat!  I have hot water!  And yes, I have internet, too!  

I am so back!  

I'm still just a bit in survival mode, though, because I keep being halfway nervous about my power going back out.  So far, it hasn't, and I really don't expect it to.  But I'm still just a touch paranoid about it.  

I've spent most of yesterday and today catching up on my DVRed shows and doing laundry.  While I was doing that, I finished the had I'd started.  

It kind of tickled me that my friend Marcy had commented how much she loved the colorful hats I was knitting, then the next one I cast on was plain blue.  Ah well, the bright colors will come back soon, but I need to use up stash yarn, too.  

I would have thought I'd have gotten more hats done, since there was nothing else to do while my power was out.  That was my main issue.  I'd stocked up on firewood, water, and food I could cook on the camp stove.  I wasn't prepared for the boredom.  How did our pioneer ancestors live like this?  

I guess because I'm so used to having TV and internet that I had to figure out how to keep myself occupied without those things.  I read a bit in my book.  I knit a bit.  

Oooh, I went into Cody's bedroom and got his old radio, but quickly discovered that I didn't have the right sized batteries.  I had every other size but the ones I needed.  Just my luck. 

Monday after the rain stopped, I ran into Walmart and picked some up, and have a little noise in the house helped quite a bit.  

Since I couldn't play my piano, I got out my old kalimba and tried to remember how to play it, but lost interest in it just as quickly as I did the first time. 

When I was putting it away, I found the needle felting kit my sister had sent me for Christmas a few years ago, so I played with that for a while. 

I made a mushroom, a moon, and a pile of poo

because that's what this whole situation was -- poo.  It didn't take long before I remembered why I'd put aside the needle felting.  It's fun, but very time consuming and it takes all of your attention so you don't stab your fingers.  So, even if you have electricity, you can't needle felt while watching TV.  

After a while, I put that away and started tidying the house.  As I was going to put my card table back into the closet -- it had been in the junk room since Christmas -- I found a jigsaw puzzle.  

It had been a Christmas gift ages ago, and I had never even opened it -- mostly because I didn't have any place to do it.  Now that I have a card table, I can work it!  I got started on that, and by and by time passed.

Wednesday we went back to work.  I still didn't have any power, so I got up and got ready in the dark.  At work, I was looking for a clandestine way to plug my phone in and give it a charge, but one of the other brazers walked around to Inspector Gadget and asked  him straight out, "I haven't had power since Sunday.  May I please charge my phone?"  

"Y'all do whatever you need to do," he replied. "Today, there are no rules."  

All righty, then.  I plugged my phone in and when he came around to the sub brazing area, I half jokingly said, "Hey [Inspector Gadget], will you go up to the break room in the front office and get us all a hot cup of coffee?"  Because they're allowed to eat and drink whatever they want up there instead of being restricted to plain water only like us floor peons are. 

I really expected him to say no, but he didn't.  "You got a cup?" he said.  I did, and I gave it to him, and he actually went and got me a cup of coffee.  When he brought it to me, I said, "I take back every bad thing I ever said about you."  

There were only four brazers there that day, and probably fewer than 100 people in the whole plant.  Even worse, the main factory had power, but the building where they make the hair pins -- which you can't make a unit without -- didn't.  Have power, I mean, so they couldn't make any slabs, and therefore could only run with the slabs they already had. 

I'm not sure how many units they ran that day, but I am sure it wasn't even enough to pay the light bill.  Thursday and Friday were a bit better, but we still didn't have a plant full of people.  

Anyway, there will be more post about the ice storm, but for now, I think I'm going to go to bed.  

Good night.