Chilling Out Not What It's Cracked Up To Be

No April Foolin', the darn weather dudes were right. We were in the heart of a wicked ice storm. I took this picture at 8 a.m. and realized it doesn't matter how little ice it seems to be, most of us were not driving to the office.

Especially since it just kept accumulating all day.

I fired up the laptop and was able to work for 3 hours. The lights had flickered a few times and then, at 10:44 a.m., they went out. Without electricity, our wi-fi router wouldn't work, so not more work for me. I shut down my laptop to conserve power. Our lovely cellphone provider wasn't providing great signals all day either. Add to that, no running water or use of indoor plumbing.

I forgot what it was like to live like Laura Ingalls!

Most of the day I kept an eye on our bunny ear trees, which normally stand pretty straight up. This was early in the morning before even more ice accumulated.

At their lowest point, this was how close it looked like at least the right one would break.

But then the ice stopped coming and it warmed up just enough for us to witness an ice rain as the ice broke up and fell from all the trees. At the end of the day, the trees hadn't parted ways but they put some distant between themselves like fighting siblings.

Throughout the day we could just hear the snap, crackle, pop as tree branches (mostly pines) were falling everywhere – in the woods around us, in the neighbor's yard, a few in our yard, and all the way down the street.

This is typical of the destruction everywhere in that darn targeted purple area. No surprise about the power outages. In the early evening, many of us on our street were notified that power was restored. We're all like, "No, it's not." So we all had to resubmit our outage reports. And think that put us to the back of the line – of thousands of customers without power.

When we went to bed in our dark, chilly houses last night, the last we heard was that our power would be restored by SATURDAY afternoon. Ugh! 

Somehow managed to get a little sleep – even without my electric mattress pad. First World problems, I know. But dang. We do take a lot for granted! This morning, I went to the office to be warm and productive since yesterday was a lost cause.

Suddenly I was getting texts that there were Alliant trucks in the neighborhood. Would I dare get up my hopes?? Jim texted my a picture of our dining room lights on at 11:50 a.m. (25 hours without power). So I raced home and showered and made it on time to church for 1 p.m. Good Friday service. I guess God really does answer our prayers on His time.

Here a few "cool" shots from yesterday...

Poor birds falling victim to fake spring and looking for anything to eat. Icicles weren't doing it!

I hope this didn't kill off any of our budding trees!

And how safe our these power lines in our yard?

I was happy to learn, though, that there are things you can do when it's a daytime power outage.

Mind out of the gutter! I meant practically completing a whole baby blanket! 💗

Want to send a special shout out to all those offering up generators, water for our toilets, and a place to stay. We have the best people in our lives. Take care of your friends and loved ones, too! 

And we've potentially got more of that freezing rain coming tonight. Be smart and be careful out there, friends!