The night that would never end!!!
At 1:55am, the power went off. It woke me up. I sat up & realized what happened & quickly hopped out of bed & unplugged the computer. I've always heard that it's when the power surges & 'flickers' or when it comes back ON that there is a danger to the computer getting fried. So anyway, I unplugged it all & got back in bed. I layed there for quite a while, not able to fall back to sleep. Finally, just as I began to doze off, at 2:20 the power came back on. The outside light right by our bedroom window came on & the fridge began to hum...so it woke me up, again. I decided to plug the computer back in & check to see if the local news station had posted about our school being closed today. JUST as the website pulled up & I began scrolling down the page, the power WENT OFF AGAIN!!!!! In utter frustration, I climbed back into bed. I was exhausted & crawled into bed without really thinking about unplugging things again. At 3:25am, it came back ON. I don't know why but I felt fairly confident that the power was going to stay on this time. (maybe it was middle of the night delirium?) Of course it woke me up again when it came on, so I went back to the computer & looked up the news site to see if the school was closed. It was not listed in the closings, but I was wide awake so I checked my email & was still sitting at the computer when I heard a loud crash outside my window. The neighbor's tree (in between our 2 houses) had branches breaking off from the weight of the snow. Realizing that's all it was, I crawled into bed & prayed for sleep! About the time I dozed off, WHAM....another branch fell. A few minutes later, the power went off again! At that point, I panicked about the computer having been switched off & on a couple of times by the power going back & forth so many times, but not panicked enough to go unplug it all again. I had been up most of the night & every time I'd been up, I had to go potty. Good grief...did I drink that much last night near bedtime?
I reached the point at about 4:45am that I was just praying for the night to end. Every time I got up to unplug the computer or look outside because of the falling branches, I'd see that the snow was still falling & it was piling up!! I kept thinking 'SURELY our schools will be closed!!".
At about 5:15am, Samuel got up to go potty & when he realized that the lights wouldn't come on, he got his flashlight & carried it to the bathroom. I could see the glow of the light through the house & layed in bed, giggling at the idea of him standing over the toilet, aiming the flashlight and (ahem...) himself at the toilet to see where to 'go'. Larry rolled over & heard me giggle & asked what was funny. It struck me as humorous but I realized I was probably just going nutty from lack of sleep. I explained to him about my night & why I was giggling. As we lay there whispering to each other, I heard the pitter patter of another set of little feet. These were headed our direction! Sarah showed up at my side & wanted to snuggle. She climbed into the bed and asked if they were going to school. I told her that I didn't know b/c our power was off. (Can't check the website or turn on the TV news to find out if you have no power!) Larry told her that we'd wait til closer to 6:00 & then he could use his work laptop to check the news site. She giggled with anticipation. And then it hit her. Tonight was supposed to be her birthday party sleepover. She started to cry, asking if we'd still be able to have it. We explained that we really didn't know...we'd have to wait & see what the day held. We promised to reschedule it if we couldn't do it.
By 5:45, all three kids were in our bed. Samuel had kindly awakened both of his sisters when he went to the bathroom. We didn't realize that all the time Sarah was snuggling with us, the other two were in his bedroom looking out the window at the snow!! At 5:50am, all five of us were huddled around the coffee table waiting for Larry's laptop to boot up, anxious to see if the kids would be going to school. Hooray! School was closed!!! The kids were soooooooooo ready to get outside & into the snow. They wanted to go out RIGHT THEN, but we told them they had to wait a little while. Breakfast & clothing needed to come first.
Snow day!!!!!
You've got to understand, as lifelong Texans we simply DO NOT get snow. We see flurries every other year or so. And MAYBE once every 5-6 years, we might get a tiny bit of snow that sticks, but it's *always* gone within 24 hours, and typically it's only enough to dust the ground....usually doesn't even cover the grass! Honestly, 99% of the time, what we call 'snow' is actually just piled up sleet, but we're thrilled to get anything that looks like snow because it just doesn't happen around here. In my LIFETIME, I've never seen more than 1-2" of snow. That is until TODAY. When we got outside this morning (yawn...at 6:25 am!), there were FIVE INCHES of snow on the ground! We have giant trees covering a lot of our yard, so the ground under those trees was pretty bare, but the rest of the yard was COVERED in fluffy, powdery, flaky white beauty!!! It was SUCH a sight to see! Larry and I were discussing it today and decided that the last time we had a decent amount of snow, maybe 2-3", was about 20 years ago.
It didn't take long until our entire neighborhood was out in the yards, walking up & down the street, almost everyone carrying a camera & snapping pictures. We made sure to tell the kids they might not see this much snow again til adulthood. And as it ALWAYS goes, by bedtime tonight, our yard was nearly bare...it's melted. Except for a little patch here & there, in the nooks and crannies of trees or a yard here and there along the roads, it's gone. We never have snow for long, but I'm sooooo glad we had THIS snow! I can't say enough about how PRETTY it was...so I'll hush & let you see for yourself.
Ok....now onto the rest of the day!! (even though the kids spent most of the day going in & out the doors with socks on their hands) Remember how I said that the power went off for the last time about 3-something this morning? Well, by lunchtime, it was still off. We went to eat lunch at a local Mexican place not only for the yummy food but for the heat! You may see that 4 out of 5 of us are wearing our jackets in this picture (below). When we left the house to go eat, it was about 63 degrees in the house. It took us a little while to warm up!
Funny thing. When I asked the waitress to take this picture, she was happy to do it. As soon as she took the camera from my hand, Savannah said "Are you going to put this on your blog?". ha ha! She knows me well.While we were eating, we started recognizing that Sarah's birthday sleepover was probably not going to work out after all. Even if we did get our power back on, if it didn't get turned back on pretty soon, it wouldn't have time to heat up the house in time for Sarah's guest to arrive. It might've been warm enough by bedtime, but I wouldn't feel right inviting over a guest to a cold house. We made the call & explained the situation to our little guest's mom (one of my best friends!) and she was completely understanding of the situation. We were able to reschedule for tomorrow afternoon. We'll meet at a local place & eat dinner at share cake with them. Whew!
After our lunch out, we drove around our little town & enjoyed seeing the pretty snow, all the snowmen in the yards and families out playing together. We saw one particular thing that we wish we had not, though! A truck passed us with a snowman standing up in the back. We laughed & pointed it out to the kids just in time to realize that (gasp!) it was not a snowman at all! It was umm....a private male body part, complete with all the appropriate parts & pieces attached...made of snow....standing upright in the back of a truck!!! We pointed it out to the kids & it sounded about like this:
Me: Oh look! Someone built a snowman in the back of their truck!! Look guys, in that truck right over there!!
Kids: Oh cool!
Me: Gasp! Wait, that's not a snowman, it's a.......(eyes bugged out, hand over mouth, didn't finish that sentence)!
Larry: (while on the phone with his grandmother) HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
(NOTE: He was just as shocked as I was, but he was dying laughing because I'd just POINTED OUT the giant male 'part' to our children!)
Kids: What? What's funny? What was that mom??
Me: Oh nothing!!! Nevermind.
We came home & attempted to take a nap so that I could get back some of the sleep I lost last night. Since the power was out, that meant no computer or TV to entertain the kids while Larry & I tried to rest. We tried to talk them into laying down as well since they got up well before the crack of dawn. Thankfully, we did get to sleep for a short time. I was jolted awake, however, by the sound of the power coming back on...and the immediate funky noise that the computer was making forced me to realize I had NOT unplugged it the last time the power went off in the wee hours of the morning! Gasp! I ran over & yanked the plugs out of the power strip without giving it much thought. Since the speakers were putting out a weird noise, I was scared something was wrong due to the power surging back on. I guess, in hindsight, pulling the cords out of the plugs wouldn't fix any damage already done...but at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do. After a few minutes of being awake, I plugged it all back in & pressed the power button. *click* Nothing. The computer wouldn't come on. We tested the power strip....it worked. Everything else plugged into it worked. The computer was dead. I think I cried a little. (grin)
After calling a friend (THANK YOU MARK!!) who is a computer genius, we decided that MAYBE the power supply had been fried in one of the off/on/off/on power outages. I called Best Buy & talked to someone there on the Geek Squad. They told me to bring it & concurred that it did sound like a power supply issue. I drove up there thinking that it would take them 3-4 days to get to it. The guy on the phone had indicated that. When I got there, however, there was no one else waiting at the counter & the guy said he could have it fixed within 2 hours if that was indeed the problem. Sure enough, by 7pm tonight, my computer was fixed!!!!! Hallelujah! I think Savannah & I both were panicked about all the files & things we have stored.
I got the computer home about 7:45, plugged it in & voila.....it works! After getting the kids into bed & reading my emails, peeking at facebook & coming here to type this, I am yawning & seeing this screen through half shut eyes. Time for me to hit the sack.
Oh...and did I mention that in amongst all the other stuff, Larry had a minor surgical in-office procedure done this morning? Oh yes...it's truly been a great day of fun & laughter, but it's been a long long day. I thought it would never end!
No comments:
Post a Comment