January 24

Well, this Monday and I did not begin on the best of terms.  I woke up this morning to what I thought was my alarm clock.  I kept hitting the snooze before I sat up and realized that the clock wasn't even on.  Then I looked groggily around the room to realize that nothing was on.  Jeff went downstairs and got a cell phone and it was shortly before 5:30.  It was also 20 degrees below zero outside and from my best guess-our power had been off for about an hour.  And I still don't know what that stupid noise was....
So-no power means no heat and no water for us because we have a well.  If there isn't power-the pump doesn't work.  So I gathered the kids up and bundled them up because it was only about 50 degrees in our house at this point.  Our living room has a fireplace and a propane wall unit that doesn't require electricity.  So, thank God, we still had heat because the power company estimated that it would be between 9 and 10am before we got our power back.  I should preface the rest of the day by saying that my kids normally get up between 8:30 and 9:30....so getting up at 6am was not a terrific start to their day, either!
Thankfully, things weren't as bad as all that.  It got down to 48 degrees in the rest of our house before the power came back on at 7:40.  A huge thank you to the CVPS crews that were out working in this nasty cold so that my family and I could have our warm house back even sooner than projected!
So-our whole day was kind of rough, thanks to all the early rising.  Tolerance was low and tempers were short. School was rough and there wasn't a whole lot of learning that happened, but we got the important stuff in! I tried to talk everyone into a nap.  That didn't really pan out.  Overall, it wasn't a horrible day.  I spent the majority of my day thanking God that our power came back on quickly, that the pipes didn't freeze, that Jeff had a two hour delay for school, that we had a secondary heat source...and also praying for all those who weren't so blessed.
Now we are all relaxing in our warm home, snuggling and getting ready for bed.  I am hoping that tomorrow turns out to be a little less adventurous than today.....