Back on the Grid!!

This is huge. This is exciting. This is the *best news ever*!

We are back on the grid. After a week with no power, and 2 weeks with no phone or internet service, it feels good to be able to communicate again. I feel like I've been away for 2 months, instead of 2 weeks.

So, you know, being without power sucked. Especially when it's cold. We can't run our wood furnace without power, so had to huddle by the fireplace. Which worked great for about 3 days, until smoke started pouring out of the side ventilators. Filled the house with smoke. So on top of being cold and miserable...the house reeked. 2 weeks later, whenever I pulled my laptop out of my briefcase at work, I still get a whiff of woodsmoke.

So the last week I've been cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. Washing rugs. Washing floors. Today, it was time to wash curtains. Oh, and you remember all that laundry piled up in the doorways? Finally got through all that, too.

And though I keep finding spots of candle wax here and there on the floors while I'm cleaning, and there's still the faintest hint of smoke, and we have piles of cut up trees and limbs that would do a beaver community proud, things are slowly getting back to normal.

Freak Storm Hits

A freak storm has hit Connecticut. 20 some inches of very wet, very heavy snow with half the leaves still on the trees, so all of those trees, and power lines, and power poles, came a'tumbling down. Yes, just like the walls of Jerricho.

You'd think the acapolypse has arrived. No heat. No lights. No water. No nothing. My house is filthy. We've been melting snow on the gas grill to bathe with, which I guess is all right, except I keep finding pine needles in my hair. 7 days worth of clothes for 4 people are blocking the doorways. The cat and dog are fighting for lap rights beneath the blankets. We're on day 7 of this crap, and quite frankly, I'm in a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, mood!

I'm in a neighboring town, with electricity, in Panera Bread with free wi-fi. So I'm checking in with my little pretties. You may not hear from me again for a few days.

But we're alive. We're kicking. And we're doing LOTS of reading.