Icy Lessons

As you know we had an ice storm last week. We lost electricty Monday and finally got it back Thursday night....what a long week. It wasn't all bad though....I learned a lot and we made some memories that are going to last us a long time.

Some of the things we learned:
A generator is your best friend when the power goes out

However, you really should make sure the battery is charged (ours wasn't) that you have gas (we didn't) and that the wiring in the house is setup so that you can actually plug the generator into the house (ours isn't). So instead we jumped the battery with the truck, ventured out to get gas and see/help some family along the way, and ran extension cords into the house.

You can cook potatoes on a radiator heater....if you can leave them long enough....my guess would be 3-4 hours

 When you don't have time to let them cook....chop them up

 add some ham, onion, broth and spices and make soup

If you're wondering, yes that is a turkey fryer in our kitchen....seriously! It's just a propane burner, hooked to a small bottle (like for a grill). You would be amazed how much heat that puts out! We got the house all the way to 60 degrees with it. A word of warning.....do NOT leave unattended! This is a serious open flame!

We huddled around it like a couple of hobo's but it kept the chill off....it also made some killer roasted marshmallows!

We ate really, REALLY well during this ordeal....seriously...look at this breakfast!

Yummmmmm!!!

I even figured out how to make coffee. Don't ask why this didn't occur to me sooner, but I just heated water on the burner and poured it over the grounds into the coffee pot

Then you just let the coffee pot do it's magic....hot delicious beverage coming right up!

If you curious, no,  we were not able to keep food in our fridge. Instead we moved it all into coolers on the porch. We hoped the cooler would keep the cold food from freezing.....and it worked like a charm!

Everything from the small freezer was transfered to the great frozen outside also.

We also learned that playing games beats a lot of boredom...We played checkers, connect 4 and battleship....I put together a puzzle, Brad did some reading.

We also learned that a smaller area heats faster....so we curtained off the hallway so all we were heating was the kitchen and living room. That said, we had to have a place to sleep so the mattress from the guest room was pulled to the living room floor.

The dogs loved it!

It was actually great to have a couple days to hang out with no electronic distractions.

I learned, even more, about how amazing my husband is. He got out in the freezing cold and got the generator running, helped me cook, drove the awful roads to make sure we were taken care of and stopped to check on my family, including chipping ice at my grandparents, picked up one of my friends for work on Thursday, and helped get the house back in order when the power came back on. 

I learned what a great team we make....I wouldn't say that I want to go through another ice storm any time soon, but it wasn't that bad, and we did learn a lot.

ps...if you know Brad you might have noticed that I said we added onions to the soup....he even knew they were going in, in fact he sauted them while I got the potatoes ready. Amazing, I know!