Power

The electricity in our neck of the woods was restored last night... 24 hours ahead of what was scheduled.  I can now go back to just sticking dirty dishes in the dishwasher and start to tackle the mound of laundry which built up.  It's also nice to not have the interior of the house quite so dim.  It turns out, that even though you would think my kitchen is a bright, sunny place, in realty, it is one of the darkest rooms in the house.

I have to admit that part of me was a little disappointed the power came on early.  Having no internet and no major appliances really slows you down.  By last night I was feeling pretty relaxed (especially since I knew our frozen meat was maintaining the appropriate state of frozen-ness in a friend's freezer).  We had started to like the look of candlelight and I was immediately struck by the low level of noise that began immediately upon the power coming on.  I hadn't realized how quiet everything had become.

The two things I found I missed the most were the microwave because I have developed the tendency to nurse a large cup of coffee or tea and just continue to warm it up when ever it cools off too much.  Without a microwave I would have to do a better job of keeping track of my mug and not loose it every half hour or so.  The other thing I missed was listening to music.  This surprised me.  I knew I listened to the radio and played CD's, but I guess I wasn't aware of how much I enjoyed doing so.  If the outage had continued, I think I would have been driven to play the piano and dust off my skills a bit... just to hear music.  I hadn't connected how hearing music was fulfilling my need for music and probably playing into how little I actually play anymore.  (I know the other factor is sheer lack of time.)  It was an interesting realization.

It also makes me much more aware of how much time we all spend using the computer.  I need to rethink our policy of keeping the computer on during the day.  Perhaps having two designated times during the day where I check email and do whatever writing needs to be done is the way to go.  Having the computer off and not just closed would certainly go a long way toward breaking the computer habit.

What we did do the past couple of days was to completely empty the school room and reduce our book collection by about a third.  School books will now be housed on the third floor, though getting that organized will happen later in the summer.  J. and B. also pulled off the panelling which was put up on one wall to hide crumbling plaster and then they knocked down and bagged all the plaster.  A. and P. have been busy sanding away (with masks, of course) at the trim to ready it for painting.  J.'s next project is to put up new wall board where the plaster was removed.  We managed to make quite a mess at the moment.  A. is so anxious to move in that she keeps urging us to the next step.

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