Exciting day

Well, yesterday was a little exciting!  I started my day off with jury duty which was really easy.  I was out of there by 10:30 a.m.  There just wasn't a lot going on.  Then I stopped on my way home and picked up my little sewing machine ... I'm calling him Bert because there is a name and phone number on the machine.  I assume from a previous owner, but I thought that was a good name for him!  It was about 97 degrees by the time I got home, which is super hot for us here.  I set myself up downstairs in my bedroom (which is the only area in the house with air conditioning because it was remodeled a few years ago and we added central air to the whole section); I had a nice table in there, my cute little sewing machine, and my new project I'm working on.  While I started sewing I was so excited to be working, and then I had a great idea for this project that I'm working on.  It's a class I'm going to teach, and I don't want to give anything away yet, so I won't tell you what my idea is ... just yet. 

But do you know how exciting it is when you're working on something and you just have a vision for it?  I was so happy ... then the power went out!  I figured it was just a brown out because we get those all the time in our area when it's super hot.  No big deal because we had to go to darling daughter's tennis match.  Then I found out on the way to the match that the power in all of San Diego county was out!  Wow ... there were several good lessons to be learned here ... I was oh so happy I had filled up with gas the day before, so now I totally see the value in not letting your car run down to empty.  I also have a gas stove, so was not worried about what we were going to eat for dinner or the next day or so.  The lines were knocked out by operator error from the east and from the south, so this was an outage that was going to last several hours if not for a day or so.  I lots of times let our food run down to almost nothing because my husband likes to eat out (and I don't particularly like to cook).  Well, now I see why I should have an earthquake preparedness kit.  Lots of water, some batteries, non perishable food, and a radio that operates either on batteries or the crank kind I have seen in the L.L. Bean catalog.  I kept trying to put batteries in one of the clock radios and run it that way, but they wouldn't work.  So we would go out to the car and run the radio for 10 or 15 minutes listening to updates every couple of hours.  I gathered all my candles together before dark, and boy am I ever happy that I love candles ... what a great ambience it gave us! 

So we dined by candlelight and then moved into the living room and just sat and talked for a couple of hours.  It was really nice.  My daughter who is 17 said "wow, now we have to sit around and talk because there's nothing else to do."  I thought that was really funny because we always talk.  But she was right in that we all are usually off on the computer, watching t.v., or whatever, so it was nice to just be together.  So I felt very lucky ... our power came on at about midnight.  I can't imagine it being out for days like I know people have had happen recently with the hurricanes.  It is weird though to look around and not see any lights ... everyone's power in San Diego County was out ... they said this morning that that was about 5 million people.  Wow!!  So today I am very grateful for my electricity ... to dry my hair, to operate my computer and to sew!