And, oh, how I miss it when I don’t have it. We had looked forward to the opening ceremony for the olympics. I had hoped to get dinner done early but that didn’t happen . . which is a blog post all by itself. At one point, Vince said “let’s just go out to eat” and I didn’t want to do that so I kept on and did come up with dinner.
The first project for the Ravellenics could be started during the opening ceremony so I was all set.
And, what do you think happened about 5:30 p.m. . . right in the middle of dinner preparations? It thundered, it sprinkled a few drops, it thundered again and our power went off.
It was kinda worth it though because I had two burners going on the stove and I thought with all the newer gas stoves, they didn’t work when the power was off because of some electronic sniffer that’s supposed to shut off the gas when there’s an issue. My two burners kept going. Yay! I was afraid to turn them off but I wanted to run take a shower before the water in the holding tank was gone. I turned on another burner, lit a match and yes, it lit. Vince said that maybe they only lit because there were two other burners going so once I turned them all off, I tried again and they do light with a match.
This is how much knitting I got done before it got too dark in the house.
Notice there are two! That’s because I got so screwed up on the first one that I gave up, took the needles out and started over. I may be in way over my head with this project. I worked on the second one for a little while but gave up . . couldn’t see well enough by candlelight and I didn’t want to go dig out the lanterns and we didn’t want to fire up the generators. The UPS guy told us the power guys were working right out on the highway past our house so we figured power would be on soon but I gave up and went to bed.
Today I’ll be gone all day and doubt I get any knitting done til late tonight.
karen says
Judy, you and Vince need to put a Guardian Generator on your to buy list. We have a whole house one and when we had winds of 90+ mph a few weeks ago here in Indiana the electric was off for about a week. But we were comfy cozy even in the 100 degree heat. It was the best investment we ever made!
JudyL says
We’ve had experience with the whole house generator and for us, it isn’t worth the investment. If you’re ever without power for an extended period, unless you have it being fed on a natural gas line and are sure that service will not be interrupted, even with a diesel fueled whole house type generator, finding fuel after a few days is an issue. We made the decision when we moved to MO that instead of investing in the whole house generator, we’d just go to a hotel. We keep small generators for the well, the freezers and whatever else we might want to run (smaller stuff) but mostly, we’re prepared to live as best we can without power if the need arises.
Gwen says
You might pick up some of the solar lights used in landscaping. I’ve heard they make a good bit of light to use in an outage. Safer than candles and lanterns. Don’t have any first hand experience though.
JudyL says
We have “flashlights” that stay plugged in and when the power goes out, they’re charged and can be used as a flashlight or a lantern. They use LED lights and last for days but the light isn’t terribly bright and if it’s sitting on a table, when I’m knitting, my hands block the light. I can come up with a better system for placing them where the light works better for me . . just haven’t done it.
Kristin says
Oooo. I have this little over the ear light that I bought at my local yarn shop. You can adjust the spotlight to shine right on your work. I mostly use it at my guild meetings, because they are held in a dimly lit auditorium, but it’s also nice to use when watching TV with other people. You can have enough light without bothering others. I’ll see if I can find a link to it online.
Kristin says
Found something! This is similar to what I have:
http://www.amazon.com/Garrity-Reading-K008G-Assorted-Colors/dp/B003AXEGUO/ref=pd_sim_sbs_ac_5
Beth says
You didn’t miss much with olympic opening ceremonies….read the reviews. Best part was the queen and James bond.
Penny Holliday says
Oh Judy, such frustration! I agree w/ other comments here re: the Olympic Opening Ceremony that you didn’t miss much. Mostly I only watch to see the parade of the many countries participating & hear their stats. Hope you had a good rain! Penny in So CA
Michelle says
Sounds like we’re more on the same track with generators than I thought we were — like you, I mostly want water and my freezers to stay frozen. Although I really, really like having lights. Small children and oil lamps make for a very nervous mommy.
Our gas stove is seven years old and the burners all light just fine with a match. So if I don’t mind not being able to see what I’m cooking, and not being able to wash the pans when I’m done, we’re good! 🙂