Saturday, December 16, 2006
How primitive
You'll notice that we've been offline the past day or so. Sia is in Ohio... Hope is hmmm... where is Hope? Vermont maybe?And Ellie? I was one of over a million Washingtonians without power the past couple days. We went 30 hours without electricity at all due to some serious wind storms (that blew off too many of our shingles to count).
It was very humbling... how different life was before electricity came around! Thank God that our food supply has been running low; we hadn't got paid to do our big grocery shopping yet. This means there was almost nothing notable that spoiled in the fridge! We simply put our milk and eggs and mayonaise in a cooler outside and fried up the chicken for dinner on our (fortunately) gas stove. We got up around dawn to make the most of our daylight hours. We had no TV or computer to distract us. Almost all the businesses in town were shut down so there was nowhere to go. We just hung around the house, being a family. What a concept. My brother-in-law delivered some fresh cut wood for our woodstove; we pulled the mattress out by the fire to stay warm; we read Christmas stories by candlelight; we made popcorn the old-fashioned way on the stove; prayed the rosary by the fire; and we went to bed pretty early. Most of all, we talked. We played with the kids, let the dishes pile up in the sink, the laundry suspended in the washer... and just spent time together.
Now I'm not one to throw out the "technology is evil" bit at all... I missed my electric heat and would've loved to watch a movie or run my laundry or go to the grocery store. But it was a refreshing little slice of reality into what really matters. I am thankful to have experienced it. It's amazing how modern appliances have shaped family interactions... whole lifestyles. I know too many couples who let their bedroom television put them to sleep. Everything in moderation is what I think. But I'm more and more convinced that the less we have... the less we take for granted. So I don't mind a little power outage every so often... just don't let it happen during Survivor!!! (just kidding)
-Ellie
Labels: Reflections
one of us ::
8:53 AM ::
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