Life after the Ice Storm

I can now say that I am caught up from the ice storm finally. I guess I really was last week, but it sure felt like a long time. Chris and I have been working hard outside to clean up our trees from the storm. Talk about having tons of branches to burn. Of course I was just about done cleaning up the branches from all the tree trimming we had done last year. We have a burn pile about the size of half a football field!
I had a nice birthday and was grateful to have the electricity back on for that! Valentine's day was nice too! I love February!
Today it is sunny outside and I am looking forward to getting our strawberry bed ready to plant our plants in! I can't wait to have a strawberry patch. The kids are excited too. I have caught spring cleaning fever as much as I ever do and cleaned a little. I really look forward to being outside next month! I love living here where spring is so much longer than I am used to!
Julia lost her first tooth last week! She is only 5! It was fun for her to "grow" up and be a big girl who lost a tooth.
Ethan is getting taller and taller. He is such a sweet fun boy with an amazing zest for life!
Chris is doing well, he works hard and continues to succeed at work. I am trying to figure out what I am doing between housework, yardwork, glasswork, wifework and kidwork. :)

We are grateful to God because He is so good to us!

Rant and Rave

I just have to say that I feel like I am going stark raving mad! I really shouldn't say that, it is just so hard to wait for our electricity to come back on. We now know why we don't have power, there are two poles and a whole bunch of power lines on the road about 2 miles west of us, which is why we are guessing we don't have power. The problem is that no one is even working on them yet. It is obvious that it will take a long time to get the new poles in and the new wires up, so even when they start working on it it will still be awhile. The latest that we have heard is that there are 3000 poles down with 7000 miles of cable that need to be replaced! They are saying that they should have 5% of the remaining 10% of people that are without power back up by Wednesday, we are praying that we are in the first 5%, but I am skeptical! I have nothing to complain about, we have heat, hot water, food, and now a generator, I know we are better off than a lot of other people, it is just so hard to not feel like we can just get back to our lives yet. All we have at night is candle light, which is really fun and pretty for two nights, after that it is just frustrating to try and read by, plus it gets dark by 5:30 so I have to cook dinner before dark, and try to get the dishes done, or otherwise just wait until the morning to do them, I hate waking up to a full sink of dirty dishes. I hate not being able to really see what I am cooking and whether it is still raw or burnt. Cooking by candle light isn't what it is cracked up to be, not that I have ever heard it cracked up, but you get my point. Baking is a therapeutic event for me and since we don't have our oven working because of the safety feature I can't bake and that is driving me crazy too. I also want to cook with my crockpot and can't do that either. Anyway, I just have to say that going for 8 nights without power is really really hard and there is no soon end in sight. It would help to know how long we will have to wait, but the power company isn't saying anything to anyone. As far as I know there are still full towns without power and we are just one street. Chris and I take turns being frustrated with all of this. The hardest part is seeing how the kids hate this. They love watching TV and while I don't let them watch tons, they have their favorite shows that they miss, plus there isn't light to play with their toys after dinner so they are bored. I am really really trying to be patient, it is just plain hard! Chris has been able to use the generator to power our washing machine, so we are running that to wash the load I started when the power went out. I hope that the clothes are okay, not mildewy or bleached by the soap sitting in them for days on end.
Okay, I guess I am done ranting! I hate this and look very much forward to this being over soon!