Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Candlelight

To celebrate a blustery and rainy evening, Chris decided to make a fire in the fireplace. Ada loves helping carry wood and crumple newspaper for the fire, and they had a good time setting it up. Shortly after the fire started blazing and crackling, the power went out.

Ada had lots of questions about why there were no lights, and how to bring them back. Once she'd satisfied her curiosity and been sufficiently assured that the power would come back when it was ready, we gathered candles and flashlights and curled up in front of the fire.

Ada loved the specialness of being in the dark with us, and she was even more thrilled when she got to have (no cook!) PB&J and veggies for her candle-lit dinner. We brought candles into the bathroom and filled the tub with enough warm water for a nice cozy bath. We read books by flashlight (Ada proving herself an unreliable and easily distracted flashlight holder) and tucked her into bed.

Just as Chris and I were trying to figure out how to convert our dinner plans to work on the stovetop, the power came back on.

It was the best two hours of my day.

7 comments:

  1. Sounds really nice. We are having a wood stove put in starting next week. It's a big job so while it probably won't be done before Thanksgiving, it will definitely be done by Christmas. I'm really looking forward to the coziness.

    How are you feeling these days? I'm still really tired but hoping the end is now in sight.

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  2. I remember the powercuts of the early 70s over here as being very adventurous and exciting times as a child. Loved reading this.

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  3. I love blackouts, I really do. And they are even better when you have a fireplace.

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  4. It's kind of funny power outages are so fun, but we never do things like a "power off night" on purpose.

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  5. That almost makes me wish I had a fireplace. Almost.

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  6. You guys get a day off? too.

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