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Friday, January 28, 2011

We get by with a little help from our friends.

Night before last and yesterday was a chunk of time that I'd just as soon not relive.

After a foot of heavy, tree-snapping, power-line downing snow (thanks, NOAA, for flubbing so catastrophically) and a crisp night spent with no heat or electricity and a child bundled up like Randy from A Christmas Story, we dug out of our driveway and abandoned our house for the day, not knowing when we would return, because..

When you're a kid, it's an adventure.  When you're a young adult, it's annoying.  When you're an adult with a baby in the winter, it's unlivable.

Many hours later, we picked Brandon up from work and returned to what we hoped would be the house on the street that would make environmentalists cringe (generally, when the power comes back on, I'm temporarily blinded because in my mole-like bumblings, I turn on every single light by habit).

When we slipped around the icy corner onto our street, I choked back a sob (dramatic, much?) as I saw the gleaming brick colonial beacon welcoming us home. 

Right in the driveway, Brandon and I both whipped out our phones and began calling and texting the laundry list of friends who had contacted us throughout the day

to make sure we were ok,

to offer their homes for the night and weekend,

to let me and Harper spend the whole day with them & not flinch when H delivered an an award-winning temper tantrum in the car,

to remind me that Harper's white noise machine can be operated on battery power.

Thanks, y'all.

4 comments:

  1. Did you ever lose power when you lived in Milwaukee?

    I'm just sayin'...

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  2. Beyond happy that I've yet to experience a power outage with a child!

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  3. I'm so sorry I didn't think to offer you a place to come hang out! (though I doubt you would've wanted to drive all the way to Arlington). God forbid there's a next time, you and Harper are more than welcome to come hang out here...in the event my power doesn't go out either :) Glad everything is working now and you got through it.

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  4. Oh Jessica, that's so sweet. You're right. We would have never, ever made it all the way to Arlington. ..with all of the power outages, we barely made it to Walter Reed and then to Bethesda. It took hours! I'm glad you didn't lose power!

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