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Tag Archive for power outage

An Eye Opening , “Power-less” Day.

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Renee Spindle

Transformer repair – lots of trucks and equipment.
Photo courtesy of tspindigital.com

Today is Saturday, October 26. It’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and we’ve been a neighborhood with no power since 5 am this morning. It’s not our entire area just our little block of a neighborhood. Weird huh? When I called Southern California Edison to report the outage the customer service rep says, “Are you sure your power is out Ma’am? I’m not showing any outages in your area.” I was the first one to call in. And then she proceeded to ask me if we had checked the breaker box. Ha!

I have to admit I was not planning on spending today with no power to the house. It’s somewhat inconvenient, much quieter, and really making me want to take a nap, and I am not a napper by trade.

We are hosting a birthday dinner/party tonight for our oldest daughter. My Mom will be handing out flashlights when everyone walks in the door. It will be an adventure!!

In light of this change in our Saturday plans I have compiled a list of ten things I have been enjoying or will be enjoying with no power today.

What’s that you say, no laundry can be done today? Whoopee , no problem there.
Can’t run the dishwasher, that’s ok, we have lots of paper plates in the pantry.
No TV during the power outage- that’s fine, I probably watch too many home improvement shows as it is. However, I would like the power to be back on for the World Series game tonight.
What? I can’t be on the wireless internet either? That’s fine I probably spend too much time on the computer.
No baking or cooking (my stove requires electronic ignition) . Honey, let’s go to Olive Garden for lunch? Yum.
Birthday dinner will require paper plates and plastic cups! Easy cleanup! No problem.
Watching our two cats interact with one another. They have this love-hate relationship going on. The older cat is always growling and hissing at the younger guy. Even when he is doing absolutely nothing.
I’m noticing that having a technology free day is not a bad thing! Maybe I should do this once a week.
Maybe The Party House needs to “disable” the wi-fi for family gatherings. Hmmm?? What would the twenty-something crowd do with themselves??
Having Travel Man home today to start-up the generator -priceless. He loves going into “survival” mode. It’s a guy thing.

An interesting side note to this day- the power did not get turned back on until 9 pm on Saturday night. We strung a few lights in the house via my Mom’s RV generator for the birthday dinner. The conversation was great, not a lot of cell phone surfing going on. Oh, and my kind brother and Travel Man hooked up the TV so we could see the last few innings of the World Series game. My family is so great. Happy Monday everyone!

No comments Posted in Around the House, Birthdays, Family

The Power’s out Grandma -Now what do we do?

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Renee Spindle

Last Saturday our beloved Southern California Edison had scheduled some sort of maintenance stuff, and we had been notified that the power would be out some time between the hours of 7am and 3:30pm, by mail. I wonder how many people in the neighborhood forgot about this and had friends or family over? This timeframe was ok for me. I didn’t have a whole lot going on, and whatever was urgent I finished on Friday. My only commitment was to host my grandson, Evan, for an overnighter so his parents could have a “date night”.

In a perfect world the power would have been off between 7am and 3:30pm, but in my world the power went out at about 11am, and didn’t come back on until almost 9pm!!! The nerve.

I called my daughter to delay Evan’s arrival until 5pm or so. Evan came over with the pepperoni pizza and bread sticks in hand, and I had a movie to watch. At this point in the day the power was supposed to be back on at 6pm. Of course I called to check on it. My grandson was on his way over and I was the entertainment! I figured no big deal, about 45 minutes with no power and then we could get on with our evening. After Evan put the pizza in the kitchen and said his goodbyes to his Mom, he was investigating the house, the light switches, the tv. Walking around very inquisitively.

And this was his battery of questions-

So you mean the computer won’t turn on?

The light bulbs in the lights won’t turn on?

What about the plugs? They still work don’t they.

Will the tv turn on how are we going to watch our movie??

And my response to each of these was “No Evan that needs electricity to work”. It took him awhile to digest that information.

So, 6:15 rolls around, and still no power. I called again to get a status and now the power won’t be back on until 9pm. Yikes! Not the evening I had planned. Mini panic by Grandma at this time.

Now, Evan’s just a little scared because it’s getting dark, and our entire neighborhood is in the dark. The street in front of our house is just pitch black. I lit the fireplace in the living room, lit some candles, and we each had a flashlight. At some point I had asked Evan if he wanted to go home, and he said, “Nope”. Evan was too nervous to eat any pizza so he just snacked on the bread sticks.

We played a short game of memory, and then Evan was looking around the living room and he says, “So this means I can’t play any video games, or watch tv right now”. I replied, “You’ve got it! This is a video/tv vacation”. I’m thinking to myself maybe we should make this a regular thing.

Next I busted about my iPad. I realize this contradicts my no electronics statement, but a Grandma’s got to go what a Grandma’s got to do. I have some games on the iPad that Evan likes to play, plus it was well-lit. We played checkers, tic-tac-toe, connect four, and then scrabble. Evan’s really starting to get into the scrabble board. He needs a little help, but enjoys putting the word puzzle together.

Finally, the power came back on at about 9pm. We scream Yahooeeeee, turn on the tv to watch the smurfs, make popcorn, and eat some pizza. TV/video vacation was over.

Isn’t it funny in this age of all things electronic that we just don’t take more time for some peace and quiet. I think I have a new concept for overnighters at Grandma’s house. A video vacation will be part of our new overnighter routine, and we’ll learn a new board game or card game, and read some extra stories together.

It doesn’t get any better than this. Good night Evan.

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Our Christmas Power Outage

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Renee Spindle

Christmas Day has come and gone, already, but I had to share our family story with you from The Day. The Party House hosted Christmas Day for the entire family. We are quite a group when all assembled.

This is our family picture from Christmas Day. It was a balmy 75 outside, doesn’t really put you in the mood to wear your best sweater when you have a house full of people.

Let me introduce you to everyone:

Seated (from l-r): Evan, the grandson; My Parents Joan & Jim (who are also the grandparents, and great-grandparents – they wear a ton of hats!); Tom, my husband(The Travel Man), and our fearless dog, Clyde.

Standing (from l-r): Cassie, Zach’s girlfriend; Zach, #2 son; Mary, #1 niece: Hilary #2 daughter; my brother Jim, and his girlfriend, Elaine; #1 daughter, Naomi and her husband Brad; #1 son, Bryan, me of course, and our #1 nephew Jim. Whew! That was a mouthful!

After the picture-taking festivities, we nosh on some appetizers, have a few cookies, and then it’s time for opening presents, Evan was very, very excited. At the suggestion of our nephew Jim, we opened the gifts by family. So each family was giving their gifts to everyone and then we got to enjoy seeing all of the present opening. I’m kind of a stickler with this, even though it takes awhile with such a big group I love seeing everyone opening their presents. It’s a giving thing.

So we are at the point where we only have one or two rounds of gifts to go, and……the power completely goes out on our street. What happened next will go down in the family history books under the “Remember When” section. Everyone who had a cell phone handy brightened up the room with their screens, and some of the kids have a flashlight app, so those came on right away. I remember hearing my brother asking the kids, “What’s the name of the flashlight app?”. It felt like you were at a rock concert with the lighters waving in the air (am I dating myself?). So hilarious, I cannot begin to explain how funny this was, and how funny it looked in our dark living room.

Now, we have a generator in our garage for an occasion like this, and Tom was at the helm getting the generator started, and a few lights on so we could finish opening presents. The guys were rigging up extensions cords, and trying to figure out how to keep the oven going so the ham could stay warm. And, of course,just as they were about to pull the stove out from the wall, voila the power comes back on. All in all I think it was only out for about 10 minutes, and it was definitely and adventurous 10 minutes.

As soon as we could corral everyone back in the living room, we finished opening presents which ended with my Mom passing out our family calendar. This is an annual event for our family, and is a wonderful way to put together pictures of the years past happenings. More on our family calendar in another post. It deserves its’ own story.

Evan was the paper pick up master for this event. I could not let this post go by without posting this sweet picture of him. Such a cutie pie!

Picture credits in this post go out to my nephew, Jim, and Elaine. Thanks for always keeping the shutters flying at our family events.

So we have marked another year of memories on our calendars. It is always such a treat to corral all of the kids in the family for a nice holiday dinner. And of course we always miss our long distance relatives who cannot join us. Thanks to all of you who contributed to our Christmas feast. I’m thinking next year were just doing appetizers and desserts!! Did anything wild and crazy happen at your Christmas Day festivities?

No comments Posted in Holidays