The weekend that most trees were going up while trees around us were going down......

What a weekend..... I felt like I was tapping into my inner Laura Ingalls. Except I totally failed & never want to do this again.

Most of you know what I'm talking about because when I'm grumpy & want to complain, I'm all over social media - isn't that what its for?

So yeah.... an ice storm came through on Wednesday night & we lost our power at 2am that night.... & 60 hours later, we have lights. 60 LONG HOURS... & whose counting? Me - that's who. I was counting every last long eternal minute.

Thursday night was miserable.... we slept in the cold. It was decent under all the blankets & all the layers of clothes I had on, but having to get ready for work in the dark, & having to get out from under those warm blankets - & let's talk about the worst part- sitting on an ice cold toilet seat - HELLLOOOOO.... that was miserable.

& it was awful when you get off work & come home & its already dark out. So when you come into a house with no electricity, it makes the darkness even more awful.

Friday, Ricky got a generator hooked up.  We had hooked up into it one lamp in our kitchen, one heater for the bedroom & of course, our phones & tablets charged up.  At least we were warm Friday night.  Actually - HOT!  Close up a bedroom with a space heater & dogs wrapped around your head, & it gets warm really quick.  I tucked into bed Friday night with my Kindle & just glad it was the weekend & I didnt have to go to work second guessing if my make up was even on right & if my socks matched.

The bad thing for me, Saturday, Ricky had to work.... so I was alone in the house all by myself.

Ricky had found one little TV that got a local station - that basically only shows old TV shows from the 50's & 60's... I was happy for any kind of entertainment. My morning was full of Beverly Hillbillies & Green Acres.  I actually did laugh at some of it.....

All the flashlights on the dresser :) haha

I ventured into the cold house & waited for some day light to do some house cleaning. & then I found out, its not easy to clean the house in the dark.  Day light isn't enough light to see if you're swiping all the dust.

I called it quits & just sat by the window & worked on some Bible Journaling. If you are alone in quiet & need some help, Jesus is where you need to go.... & exactly what I did.

All the cords from the generator on the table... where we plugged in our phones to charge up

I even reached out to the women leaders in my HSM group & asked them to start praying.  Because we were hearing that we were in such a small area of outages that we would be last to get repaired - & it could be Monday or Tuesday. WE NEED GOD POWER HERE!!!!! 

Still waiting on Ricky to get home, I was trying to figure out what else to do to waste some time... & you know I have plenty of yarn laying around, so I started a new project.

& FINALLY - Ricky got home....

He dug out another generator that we had & he was going to try & hook us up some more power for another heater....

except he couldnt get it going.  At least the sun finally came out & it felt decent.

I ventured out to see some of the damage around us.  This tree is in the fenced in area of our back yard.

You can see another broken tree in the tree covered area of our property.  I actually wanted to take my camera back into the woods & show even more trees down. It was crazy how much was destroyed with this small ice storm.

Winter, I hate you. Already.

We walked the dogs a little bit to get their energy burned off because they were feeling the stress from us, I think.... & we went to check in with our neighbors how they were doing. Just as miserable as we were....

& we came home & I told Ricky I was going to take a nap... .because after all, I had no coffee maker.  SO SAD...

Candles in memory of my coffee pot

Laying on the couch, getting ready to doze off, around 2pm .... BEEP!  Our house alarm went off.

Can I tell you, I have not felt that much happiness in a long time. I literally took off running.  Why? I have no idea.  But I ran outside & started screaming & raising my hands & screaming, "THANK YOU GOD!" "PRAISE THE LORD"  "THANK YOU JESUS" .... I didnt go as far as Ricky Bobby & jerk off all my clothes thinking an invisible fire was on me - but it was close.

At this point, we didnt know what to do with ourselves.... what DO you do first after not having electricity for 3 days?  You'd think I'd finally start on laundry, or clean the stuff I couldnt see before. Nope. We were like, Let's go eat!!!!

Basically because we didnt have food any more.  We had to throw away everything in the refrigerator & the freezer.  That was a little depressing with a lot of stuff I just bought....

This is stuff we stopped & got after we went out to eat.... coffee creamer was top on the list
& a Starbucks iced coffee #priorities

But it's the cleanest my fridge & freezer has been since we got it.

& you know, sometimes you need a fresh start.  We found stuff at the bottom of our freezer that I'm not even sure when it was bought.

We even got dessert to celebrate our power being back on. 

Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie

I know - I know... its kind of sad how horrible I make it sound & how much I complained - when so many live in even worse conditions daily & think nothing of it - or people who have no home to even have shelter. 

It's been a big wide eye perspective shift.

That night, my hot shower felt like heaven... & my hot coffee in bed the next morning took on a whole new feeling of blessings.

Sunday was all about church & thanking my sweet church family for praying us through the power outage... & ordering more groceries to refill my fridge.... & helping mom order her groceries.

It did break my heart to go to my mom's & seeing all the trees down in her area too.  She had some big limbs down - one even put a hole in her garage roof & there's huge limbs all over the porch... & the worse part?  My dad's covered wagon got destroyed.

He built this handicap ramp for my mom & of course put his touch on it.  He worked so hard to get vines to grow underneath of it on a trellis & wanted nothing more than flowers & squash growing on it - he would take the squash & dry them out & paint them for fall..... & now, its squashed.

I know my brother can fix it - but it just wont be the same.... but nothing is anyways, is it?

So this was definitely a memorable weekend.... I had intentions to get my tree up, but that was the last on the list to worry about... especially with trees DOWN everywhere. 

& here we go into the kickoff of the holidays.  One where I am VERY Thankful for the blessings we have!

How was your weekend?

Did the ice storm reach you?

What's the longest you've gone without power?