blackout

Yesterday was not a day out of the ordinary.  It was a blackout day.  It will happen to us every other month or so.  The power goes out, stays off all day, and then comes back on.  Not usually a huge issue, just kinda gives need for a little day re-arranging.

So at 7:30 am--while I was in the midst of a downward facing dog, Stan was headed out the door for his second attempt at his written drivers liscence test (that's a whole other story), and the boys were playing in their room--everything went dark.  And actually it was pretty dark in the house cause the sun wasn't shining so britely quite yet.  Our first thing is to always check the breakers to see if we just overloaded things a bit.  No such luck, it was the neighborhood.  And the area of Stan's testing location, but seriously that saga will get a post all of it's own once the end unfolds.  So anyway, like I said this isn't uncommon.  I think they put up notifications, or maybe announce it on the news, but we are never privy to the information cause we don't watch the local news and ignore signs that we can't read.  Some friends that live nearby asked around and we found out that it was probably going to last until 8 pm.  Great, it's completely dark at 7 pm right now. 

I have to admit at first I was really annoyed.  I had a HEAP of laundry to do.  I only got 10 minutes into my 30 minute yoga workout (and for some reason this week the chocolate has been a-calling my name and I needed the workout to at least balance things out).  I have some expense reports that MUST be done soon and I wanted to get them finished on Friday--and be able to harrass our accounting guy by email since the new format has yet to agree to make friends with me.  And a million other things that I wanted to get done so my Saturday could be nice and lazy.  But I quickly decided what I really needed to do was make a list of things that I was thankful for so that day didn't get me more and more annoyed as it went on.  So here, I will share them with you.

*Coffee was made.  And we have flavored coffee creamer.  No coffee for the day could have been disasterous.
*The load of laundry I set to start early that morning was already finished.  No half soapy, soaking wet mess to deal with.
*The night before I reset the hot water heater that goes to our shower (this hot water heater drama could possibly get it's own post too) so I was all set for a nice hot shower.
*We got to have family nap time.  My two big boys don't take naps anymore, which takes away my time for quiet and/or rest in the afternoons.  But the trade off is we now put them to bed at 7 and they go right to sleep.  Anyway, yesterday we got family nap time AND 7 o'clock bed time. :)
*The boys didn't beg to watch TV all. day. long.
*I didn't have to cook dinner.  Instead we went out, the boys played in a fun play area, and when we got home (right before 7 when it was already too dark to see) we entertained the boys with head lamps while getting them ready for bed and they pretty much went to bed without issue.
*Stan had downloaded a couple of TV programs (one of which was One Tree Hill, which I really enjoy cause inside I'm still 14) and we hadn't touched our computers all day so there was plenty of battery so we could watch them. 
*The power came back on at 9:30 so we still got to have heaters on while sleeping so it wasn't icey cold outside of the coveres...just a little cold.

This morning when the boys got up at 6:30 and discovered the power was on again, Bennett ran into our room, screamed 'THE POWER IS BACK ON', flipped on our overhead light and ran out of our room.  Stan, who had slept wonderfully, got out of bed, shut the door and went to handle early morning crowd control.  I, who slept less wonderfully, got to sleep till 8, and when I got up a little grumpy, there was coffee already made. :)  Laundry is going.  Expenses will be reported...sometime, but still before it's too late.  I may even get out for a walk to counter the chocolate.  Could it be I'm getting used to these annoying things?  Could it be that I no longer care that our power is being sold to neighboring countries/provinces/outer space?  Maybe.  But also maybe I'm just more thankful it wasn't on my lazy Saturday when it would have been really, REALLY annoying.  The end.