Absent for a month almost? The first weekend it was because we had no power, and, hence, no internet. 120,000 of us had no power in our area after a short but vicious storm came through on Saturday night. We’d gone to grandma and grandpa’s house to go to a world festival held in their town. We were eating a quick dinner when the storm blew through, making their electricity flicker. And when we went down to the town square, it was to find all the tents from the festival being tossed in a dumpster and vendors trying to salvage what didn’t get blown away. It was only after our 40 minute drive home that we got the sinking feeling as we saw no lights in our neighborhood and pulled up to a dark house.
No power means no opening the garage door on our detached garage. So, Spitz’ car was stuck in there. Could be worse – we’ve had both cars stuck before. The next day at lunch time Spitz’ dad brought over his generator, so our food only thawed for 18 hours or so. Many of our neighbors had rolled out their generators immediately. It’s very very common to own your own generator here as there have been like 4 major power outages in 5 years or so. We’ve had one that was 6.5 days long. Another that was like 4 or 5 days, and that one was during winter, so on day 2 when the house reached 50 degrees, we moved out to grandma and grandpa’s. This month's outage lasted about 2 days.
I got off track there, dreaming about the whole house backup generator I’d love to have (just like the one I saw being unloaded at a neighbor’s house on Monday morning). The following weekend we went to my parents’ house in Ohio. We try to visit them regularly so the kids will know everyone there well. It was part of our deal when we moved here – a marriage compromise. So, we were out of town that weekend, and Spitz was sick the whole time.
Last weekend, we were busy celebrating May’s 10th birthday. She had her first slumber party, full of pizza and chicken wings and capture the flag and shrinky dinks and whispering after lights out. It was a blast. Oh, and the main activity was a movie they made. More of a variety or talent show kind of thing, the giggles and the volume level got more and more out of control as it went on. But now we are going to burn copies for each girl and mail it with their thank you notes. I can totally imagine this getting posted to Facebook (or whatever there will be) in 20 years with lots of remembering and joking.
I’m on a treadmill. Every day has a schedule, and I move from event to activity, always watching the clock so I don’t miss the right time to leave for the next thing and planning what outfits, snacks, or hairbands will be needed for the afternoon. School year activities are up and running and following the master plan on our kitchen wall, dutifully and regularly updated by me. All under control. But forgot to pencil in blogging. (-:
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