report on our no electricity experiment

We decided we didn't need to go a full 24 hours without electricity as the whole purpose was to have a learning experience, and we felt that sitting around a few more hours wouldn't lead to any new insights. Besides, most the kids weren't here or conscious so that they could "enjoy" the experience:

Hannah was at track until midnight last night and I drove her back this morning for the 6 am meeting time--Ryan went back to bed after he got up and ate breakfast and he slept until 11 am since he was bored...he leaves for his swim meet at 12:30--Alex played at cousins until bedtime last night and is now on a cub scout field trip--this morning Eric and Glen are outside doing yard work.

Last night, Glen, Eric, Ryan, and I were the only ones home and we played games until the sun faded...then, after Alex came home and we read scriptures by flashlight, all the boys (Glen included) went to bed at around 8:40 since they were bored. I played puzzle games on my DS until 9:45, myself.

What we learned (or already knew, but experienced again):

Eric and I do not communicate very well when we're partners.

I knew where most of the things we needed were (like the paper products, drinking water vs cleaning up water, matches, candles, flashlights) ...but Glen didn't (and the kids still don't--need to have a little lesson there).

We need more matches and to keep the candle holders with the candles (I used large canning lids to keep wax from dripping onto anything).

Being stuck a foot or two from the wall when I was on the land line phone is really annoying after being used to the freedom of roaming around with the cordless phone.

I learned the right amount of water and how fast to pour it into the toilet bowl to make the toilet flush well (without wasting a lot of water).

With no heater running it takes the house a long time to warm up (of course I heard on the radio this morning that we are 15º below normal temperature today for this time of year). The house got down to 58º at 6 am and now, at 11, it's only up to 59º. My hands are cold...I went around with gloves on this morning.

And the big lesson for me:
When the electricity is out, but you know it's coming back on soon enough so you don't have to empty your freezer and save what you can by bottling it, everyone just sits around waiting for the electricity to come back on. "Randy lay there like a slug" from the movie "A Christmas Story" kept coming to mind. It was kind of like a holiday.

Now, in the case of a real emergency, stress would be involved and hence the holiday feeling wouldn't have been present. I wonder if the kids felt like it was a holiday or just a short prison sentence.

Oh, Hannah did shower at 5 this morning...the boys were all in bed asleep and were clueless. And I later decided if the electricity had been out that long the barn would have started its generator, so we would've had water at that point anyway.

So, maybe next time we'll try no propane and see how we feed ourselves.