Found this post from the fall....

....unfinished! The aftermath of the hurricane that left us powerless for over a week took a toll on my sanity. I guess enough that I couldn't even remember to post this post! :)

 

 When the lights, went down, in the city

(title sung like Journey)

It’s been a long week, and it doesn’t look like it will be over any time soon. I’ve learned a lot over the last few days, but one thing I’d like to share is how you too can do a test of your sanity. Some people pay tons of money to go to research labs and be studied. No siree, I’ve got you covered, and it’s free!

Step one is simple. Don’t send your children to school for one full week. Try to stock up on things for them to do(no video games or tv!) and remember that they will ‘be bored’ no  matter how much you give them.

Step two is to wait to complete this task until it is no more than 35 degrees outside. Having the optimal temperature will ensure just enough teeth chatter that you will layer accordingly.

Step three, and this is a biggie, turn off your house. Everything. Heat, TVs, phones lights, appliances. Break out those good ol’ candles and flashlights. 

Now you are ready, just follow those steps, and wait to see what happens!

* * I’ll fill you in on what happens, just in case you don’t make it through the whole week. * *

The first day or two, you are a warrior. This is no biggie! We have some laughs, play near the open windows where the sun shines in, make puppet shows with flashlights at night, easy peasy.

The next few days, it gets considerably colder. You realize the whole family should stay in one room together because of it being too cold and too dark. Ok, I can do this. Thank goodness for the small but mighty electric heater that covers one room. It’s just like a sleepover the first night you huddle, then it slowly becomes the glue that comes undone….

Did I leave out daytime? Where you are scrambling to find something to do, somewhere to go, oh and you haven’t showered in a few(just not sure how many days since you lose track of time).

Towards the end of the week, there’s a glimmer of hope. You think today’s the day where all will be restored! You plan for it, pile the laundry even higher, and go to sleep expecting tomorrow to be brighter.

But it’s not. It’s just as dark, now colder, and you now smell more. Your kids fight more, you run out of anything to do, and you stop to think. O. M. G. How will I make it through another day? 

Amazingly, you do. You find that inner strength, the one that lifts you up even on the darkest days, and you move on. There's a song in the Rankin Bass version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer that has a great line:

"Put one foot in front of the other....and soon you'll be walking out the door!"

I'm going off on a tangent here, but all I'm really trying to say is that you can do it! And when it's all over, when that laundry is all put away, kids are all clean, and meals are warm again, you'll look back in amazement. Us humans are AMAZING. We are STRONG. You might be a little mentally wrecked, but you shall survive!