Sometimes You Just Have To Have a Sense of Humor

Today was one of those days where nothing seemed to go just right.  There was quite the thunderstorm going on outside as I was going about my morning routine, when I literally turned the shower on, and the power went out.  No big deal, it should come back on, yeah right, it wasn't in the cards for today.

After about a half hour I decided on plan B.  I needed to get my kindergartener off to afternoon school so we made a simple lunch, and got her already for school.  Her favorite thing to do is watch a show on her ipod while she eats.  (don't judge, she is the youngest and is used to constant noise and chatter from her siblings, and she doesn't find my conversation interesting, so she gets to watch a little something before school) Well, her ipod wasn't charged....of course....so I ran and got my Goal Zero generator.  
 

This is an example of how handy a Goal Zero is when it is fully charged!!

Yup.....it wasn't charged either. So.....she watched a video on my laptop, that was almost dead.  We made it through lunch and now it was time to leave.  

Funny thing when the power goes out....you find many things that are used on a daily basis, without a thought about electricity.  The garage door!!! (and I also learned that not one of us has a house key on our key rings.  If I hadn't been home when the power went out, I would've been locked out of the house.  We just never transferred those keys over when we moved in.)

My 5 year old found it really fun to help lift the double garage door so the car could get out.  It was a learning experience for her, and a workout for me, because she didn't know that is was possible to lift the door without power.  When we got to school there wasn't any power either.  One of the other moms said that the other 2 towns close by didn't have power as well.  That was when I figured it was going to be awhile before the power came back on.  

For 1 1/2 hours every afternoon I have free time with no children at home.  Usually I vacuum, or clean the kitchen, or run errands, and sometimes you may find me watching a show, in peace and quiet, or catching up on my social media.  But guess whose phone was almost dead? No catching up on social media today, so I swept the kitchen with a broom from the garage.  I REALLY need to purchase a broom that is a designated inside broom.  The floors needed to be cleaned and the vacuum couldn't be used, so I did it the old fashioned way.  I know, a lot of people still use a broom, but I like to vacuum my wood floors, so this was the slower, less convenient way to clean, for me.  

Since my Goal Zero unit wasn't charged I set it up in the backyard with the solar panel to charge.  The sun had come out after the heavy rain storm so I took advantage of it, for about 5 minutes.  I'm not kidding, the clouds rolled in minutes after that solar panel went up.  I didn't want the unit to get wet so I brought it back inside.  It was 2:00 by now and I figured I wasn't going to get power anytime soon so I took a shower. It felt great to be clean, but I have really short hair and it needs to be dried with a hair dryer so I don't scare little kids.  This is where pure genius comes into play.....I towel dried my hair, applied my hair stuff, and then used my round brush and a magazine to dry my hair.  I should maybe patent this idea.....I rolled each section of hair with the brush and fanned it with the magazine.  This is one time I was grateful for thin hair. It actually worked, and minus the cramp in my thumb from fanning, I was excited that I looked like I did my hair today.  I sprayed it with hairspray, and I KID YOU NOT, the power came on the second I walked out of the bathroom. It was pretty funny and I had to laugh it off.  But I really wish I had someone home to take a picture of the magazine hair dryer, it would have made this post so much more interesting.  But I guess I now have a way to do my hair without electricity.  (Maybe I should invest in some curlers of some sort.)

I immediately plugged in my cell phone and my Goal Zero unit so they are charged.  And I learned from experience, again, to have my Goal Zero unit fully charged at all times.  

Utah has been having the craziest weather lately.  Take a look at this photo.

That.right.there.is.a.tornado!!! In Utah!!!  I live in the mountains outside of Salt Lake and I couldn't believe it!  I am from Ohio and grew up with tornado safety, but this caught me off guard.  Thank goodness it never touched the ground because we were in the car and my son was outside at his football game.  Crazy!!!  So now I can add tornado safety to our family emergency preparedness plan.  

But today is now bright and sunny and we have power again.  All 5 of my children got to experience 3 1/2 hours of school with no electricity.  It was a good learning experience.  And I feel calm knowing that my county is prepared for disasters.  I attended my county's preparedness fair just last night, and they really know what they are doing.  I am working on a post so stay tuned!

Recommended Reading- Backyard Winter Gardening by Caleb Warnock

While scrolling through facebook the other night, I came across a video by Caleb Warnock, all about winter gardening.  

I found it fascinating and I ordered both of his books, The Forgotten Skills of Self-Suffidiency and Backyard Winter Gardening, from amazon. I have actually attended a class that Caleb taught at Honeyville, and loved listening to him speak, but I never purchased his books.  The books are very interesting from a historical standpoint, but the information on gardening is why I bought them both. 

Just like in the video above, I really want to try using cold boxes to have fresh greens all winter long.  The books are full of colorful photographs and tons of information on gardening, chickens, history of the pioneers in Utah, etc.  There are even a few recipes included.  I felt these books were good enough for me to share with all of you!  I highly recommend adding both books to your preparedness library.