I visited the grocery store on Snowmageddon Thursday, the Thursday before the storm.  There was one spot left in the parking lot.  I took it.   As I walked inside the store I was already regretting not getting my grocery shopping done earlier in the week but I couldn’t put it off any longer.  We didn’t have any vegetables in the house and we were running dangerously low on milk!  We were good on bread but I bought some just for kicks.  It seemed the thing to do.  Everyone had milk and bread in their carts.  I felt self conscious at check out and kept (loudly) mentioning that this was my normal weekly trip to the store and I wasn’t trying to stock up for the impending storm.  The people behind me in line were a little annoyed that my cart was so full and I don’t think they believed my “normal trip to the store” story but I’m sticking to it!  Turns out that trip to the store didn’t help me too much when the power finally went out.

I was getting ready to start dinner when the kids wanted to go out sledding.  I took a quick moment to help them find all their gear and get ready to face the frigid temps.  As we stood at the door, one hand on the door ready to walk out, something distracted me and I turned away from the door for a brief moment.  I turned back around just in time to see a huge tree branch plummet from the sky and assault my car.  It bounced off the car and landed right at the door in front of us.  If the distraction had not come at just that exact moment, the tree branch would have landed on the kids and me.  At the time I really didn’t think of what might have happened.  I stood stunned for a minute.  It wasn’t until a few minutes later I realized, if not for that brief distraction, the tree branch would have landed on us.  I was so thankful for that tiny distraction.  It was no coincidence, God was watching out for us!

I fully intended to start dinner after all the excitement but wanted to take a few minutes to spend with my kids, watching them enjoy the snow (read: ice).  By the time, I was heading back in the house, the power was out.  Turns out all that grocery shopping left me with some bread, peanut butter, chips and some fruit.  (Now I do like a good peanut butter and banana sandwich but the rest of the family, not so much.)  All the rest of the food I bought was trapped in the refrigerator.  I guess I hadn’t planned that well after all.  We do not open the refrigerator when the power goes out for obvious reasons.  If the power is out too long, eventually we have to take all the food out and put it outside in coolers but we were not to that point yet.

Refrigerator doors tied shut as a reminder, my husband and I started thinking about what to do for dinner.  We parked his truck at the top of the driveway so we could possibly go somewhere if push came to shove.  The roads were pretty bad in the neighborhood but we heard the main roads were not so bad.  We checked traffic cams and decided we might try to head out.  I started calling around to different restaurants and (I know this is shocking) everywhere was closed, with the exception of one place not too far from our house, a fast food restaurant that literally never closes.  Should we try it?  We discussed back and forth for a minute and decided we would give it a shot.  If we got to the entrance of the neighborhood and things looked bad we would turn around and head back home.

By this time it was pitch black at our house.  We searched around the house looking for shoes, coats and gloves.  Why do we always lose our gloves?  Gloves are like socks in our house.  We always lose one.  Thankfully my son lost a left hand glove last year and right hand glove this year.  He’s wearing a fashion forward mismatched pair this winter but his hands are warm.  Just watch, next year it will be all the rage to wear mismatched gloves.

So, I just got way off track with the glove thing.  Reeling it back in!  We had all of our things, including chargers to charge our phones and iPads in case the power was out for an extended time.  “Come on let’s go.”  Everyone was walking toward the door ready to go when all of a sudden, “Hallelujah” a light shone down from the heavens.  Well actually, our power came back on.  I joked with Russell that God did not want us to eat fast food.  OK, maybe not, but what happened next was no coincidence.

I realized this “having power” thing might be short lived so I summoned everyone to the kitchen for the fastest meal prep ever.  With assistance from me, my daughter was on the sauce and son was on the noodles.  Hubs was on the salad.  We had everything done within 20 minutes.  The quick prep was awesome but the best part was we were working together as a family and having fun doing it.  We all realized the urgency to cook while we had power.  We joked about what we would happen if the power went out…crunchy noodles and cold sauce, that’s what.  We made it.  Table set, sitting down to eat, realizing our family accomplishment, we had a great spaghetti dinner.

As soon as we got up from dinner and started cleaning up, it was light then dark, light then dark.  The power was flickering again.