So, this happened… Yesterday, after a tree fell and took out four power lines on my road, I spent half the day teaching myself some valuable new survival skills and pretending that I was living in the 1800s. Well, to an extent, lol. I had a fully-charged Kindle and iPad, so I did do some reading once I got bored playing Ma Ingalls. I just watched like 30 episodes of Little House on the Prarie recently, can you tell?

So, there I was: sitting at my computer on my makeshift desk (the dining room table) when it happened. I saw a big, dark shadow pass by the window, followed by a THUD. The lights flickered and went out. Silence fell over the house. Oh crud, I thought (except I didn’t say “crud”), another freaking power outage. After we lost power for eight days following Hurricane Sandy, I get really panicky the moment the lights go out.

The worst part? The tree fell across the entire road, blocking our only way in and out of my street. My son was still at school. We usually do parent pickup since the school is just two miles away, but obviously, we weren’t going to be able to do that with a giant tree blocking the road. I called the school and had them send him home on the bus. Then I put on my boots, popped a leash on Freya and started the trek down to the bus stop. It’s less than a mile away, but the return trip is all uphill. Big hills. We had to trek through the woods to get home because pretty much all the poles on my street were crackling. I didn’t want to electrocute my poor boy or dog! Let me tell you, my back and legs are killing me today! I have chronic issues to begin with, so a spontaneous hike didn’t help.

Back home, my mom fired up the wood stove, so I thought it would be a fun time to see if I could survive in the old days. I am proud to say that I figured out how to boil water on top of the stove and make canned ravioli (just use a stainless steel pot and cover it with a lid). I also got to try out some of the things in my Live Prepared survival kit, like the radio that is also a flashlight and a phone charger. The phone charger part was a little too involved, you have to turn the crank to power it. I think if I was in the middle of the woods, I would do it, but just during a regular power outage at home, it’s too much work to get a little bit of juice. I’m pretty sure it was designed to allow you to call for help, not run Facebook, Instagram and Gmail.

The tree was finally removed enough for us to get by it at around 9. The power finally came back on around 3am. I know this because my mom came in, woke me up and said “the power is back on.” I was dead asleep. It was quite a day! Of course, the power went down before I managed to write something for today, which is why you’re getting a long-winded story about a power outage instead of something more interesting. 😀

What do you do to pass time when the power goes out?