It’s a true Black Friday here, folks. We lost power Wednesday afternoon and have yet to get it back. This is not unusual for our neck of the woods here in New England. The first couple times it happened, Schizz and I were childless. The outages were fun, memorable, romantic even. We’d play board games in front of the fire, wearing hats and mittens. We had gym memberships so we could shower before heading into work. No big deal.
Then we had a baby and MAN a house gets cold really fast. That first winter, I lost my frozen stores of breastmilk. Whoever said “Don’t cry over spilled milk” was not nursing.
Then, we had three kids. Three kids make a lot of laundry and a lot of dishes and a lot of - TMI alert- poop, and the lack of running water and ability to flush toilets was miserable. We would only last a few hours in our cold house before finding our stuff in the dark and heading to stay with generous family members and friends until word came that our power had been restored. And then it was time to clean out our all the spoiled food from our smelly fridge…again.
Two years ago, after one too many of these outages, Schizz and I finally bit the bullet and got a portable generator. Schizz was convinced that by doing so we would perform some sort of Universe Jinx and never lose power again. Last winter was a bitterly cold and snowy one here but we never had to pull out that generator… until this past Wednesday.
The generator is a godsend! It doesn’t power everything, but it does allow for us to have running (cold) water, heat, some lights, and a pot of coffee. To be able to stay in our house this time around, rather than being uprooted, has been a blessing.
Do you ever notice that it’s never the children who complain about the inconviences of power outages? To them, it’s an exciting, memorable, and wild adventure! If you view the outage through the eyes of your children, it is almost possible to forget about your grubby hair, the mounting laundry, the overflowing sink, and the growing mess everywhere. Looking through their eyes, the outage is fun once more. Through their eyes, Black Friday isn’t so black after all!
So here’s to snow play, lukewarm hot cocoa, board games, and Legos!
Here’s to magnatiles and puzzles and dollhouse adventures!
Here’s to dinner by candlelight, morse code, and flashlights!
Here’s to reading on couches, in jams, under blankets!
Here’s to coloring and crafting and making up stories!
Here’s to quiet, to calm, to no electronic noise!
And, here’s to kind friends and family who check in and reach out!
When you account for all of the above, Black Friday isn’t so black after all! If you’re local and you need a warm place to hang, just holler! We might be smelly but we are warm!
Happy Black Friday, all!
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Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Caitlin Fitzpatrick Curley
Cait co-hosts The Homeschool Sisters Podcast and is co-founder of Raising Poppies, a community for parents of gifted and twice-exceptional children. Cait is also founder of the Family Book Club at My Little Poppies, a fantastic community of book-loving parents and the Gameschool Community at My Little Poppies, a vibrant community of gameschoolers.
Cait is a contributing writer for Simple Homeschool and GeekMom. Her work has also appeared on The Huffington Post, The Mighty, and Scary Mommy. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram
and G+.
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