If ever there was a day to blow my eating healthy, yesterday was the day. The week in and of itself hasn't been great either. A family friend passed away. I found out one of my grandmas has been in and out of the hospital with kidney problems. And also that a trip planned to go see her later in March is probably going to be cancelled. I'm not sure when I will be able to next go to Florida to visit. It was a family trip and we can't afford for me to go alone. Not to mention that at this size in my life, I can't really fly. I have a cold. I have cravings. My husband is catching my cold.
Then yesterday, we start off with bad back pain. So much that I am worried my back is going to go out again. I'm thinking a period has got to be about to start, other body indicators seem to agree. Then, finding a headlight is out. Next, we have poop issues all day long while watching the nephews, one of them, not me, to clarify. I feel gross, and want nothing more than to take a hot shower when I get home.
I get home at 3 pm to discover that there is no power in the kitchen and the large crock pot of chili I started that morning is ruined. I figure the crock pot overloaded the circuit. That has never happened before, but it seems the most logical to me. I throw the breakers and the power comes back on. Shortly there after, I notice it is pretty cold in the house, 60 degrees. But the furnace is now running. I can only think at this point that the kitchen power somehow effected the furnace as the furnace is located in the kitchen.
Fifteen minutes later, the power in the kitchen, and the furnace turn off again. I try throwing the breakers again, nothing. I am panicked now, not so much about us freezing, we can go stay with my parents if need be, but rather about our pipes freezing. This was an issue last winter, an expensive issue. It is supposed to be -7 degrees tonight. So I call my husband, tell him what is going on, he says he is coming home from work.
When he gets home, he tries everything I tried. Meanwhile, I google partial home power outages. It seems that the issue is either with our main breaker, or somewhere farther up the line even to a transformer being out somewhere. He calls the power company and they are sending someone out before 6 pm. Not knowing how long this problem will last, I drive over to my parent's house to pick up their three space heaters.
That twenty minute drive takes me fifty minutes. While stuck in traffic I listen to the radio and discover that an accident has the nearby highway shut down and all the traffic is diverting down my road. Upon arriving, I was told to call home.
I call and talk to my husband, the power is on! The electric company confirmed that the power issue is at our outside circuit box which is located at the electric meter. The guy said either one circuit is going bad, or some wiring is loose. But he was able to fiddle with it and the power was on. I decide to be on the safe side and take the space heaters home anyway. Once there, I crank the heat up, thinking that if the power goes back out, at least we will have some stored up heat in the house.
After dinner, about an hour later, the power goes back off. We are able to jiggle the electric meter a little and it comes back on. Repeat 2 more times. Finally at 9:15 pm, the power goes out and will not come back on. We have the space heaters set up and running. I monitor the rate at which the house temperature is falling, about 2 degrees per hour. It should be in the 50s when we wake up. We set all the faucets to a drip. My husband is miserable at this point with a running nose and watery eyes. I tell him to go to bed, I will monitor everything for a while before following him.
After a while, I check all the faucets to make sure I didn't set the drip so low that they've stopped. I discover a problem in the second bathroom. The toilet is slowly filling with water and every few seconds an air bubble come glugging up. I turn off the bathroom faucet, the air bubbles stop. So I know it is filling because of the running water, but why isn't it draining? We don't have a plunger, so I can't check to see if it is plugged. So at this point I am just going to have to hope it is plugged and not frozen.
After this, I go to feed the cat some wet cat food. I open the refrigerator and realize, oh yeah, the power is out. I transfer everything from that freezer into our chest freezer, whose circuit is still working. Thank you God. I also pile in anything I think will freeze well from the refrigerator. The partial gallon of milk won't fit, so I set that outside. Anything left in the refrigerator will either need to be tossed or should be fine at room temperature, such as our produce.
About 11:45-midnight-ish, I decide the house is losing heat too fast still and I crank the space heaters up from medium to high. My husband comes wandering out, he can't sleep. He sounds even worse, and the space heaters are seriously drying us out. He decides to boil a pot of water and to turn the oven on. I told him I would keep an eye on it until I went to bed. He only stays up a little bit then goes back to bed.
At 12:30 the power comes back on. I have the thermostat turned up to 80 and watch with much happiness as the temperature of the house creeps back up. Shortly after 1:00 am I decide I am too tired to stay up any longer. The house temperature has reached 79 degrees. I turn off the stove and oven and go to bed. I left the kitchen light on, so that if I wake and see it off, I will know the power has gone back out.
As I have almost drifted to sleep, I hear the furnace turn off. I pry my eyes open and see the light is gone. At this point, what will be, will be, and I go to sleep.
In weight loss related news, I have stayed on track with my new eating habits despite the emotional obstacles thrown my way.
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