Remember how I was saying I thought this was going to be a knitting-focused weekend? Well, I didn't know how true this was going to turn out to be. On Friday night there was a huge thunder and wind storm, breaking many trees near us in half, blowing our mailbox down the street, and along with thousands of other people in the Chicago area, our electrical power went out that night.
Usually I have to say our power service is consistently very good - when other people have power outages that last a while, we are usually lucky enough to have ours out for only an hour or so. Well, NOT THIS TIME. Our power *just* went on at 4 pm today, so we were without power for about 44 hours. Lost everything in both refrigerators (about half of the freezer stuff was old and needed to go anyway - this is a definite case against stashing food) but still it was about seven large Hefty bags worth, we had to go out and buy another battery for our sump pump backup system, and basically sat around by candlelight on Friday and Saturday night.
On the bright side, as you can imagine, I got a LOT of knitting done! Serious progress was made on the orange leaf yoke top, and I only have the straps left to do on the Knitty Diamond halter. Pics to come soon!
That IS a serious power outtage. Which reminds me, I need to check the batteries in our flashlights. I know we got candles (tealights to be exact), cause we are heading into thunderstorm season. Sucks to lose the food. Does the insurance cover some of that?
Posted by: Carol | June 21, 2009 at 06:51 PM
ditto. geez. good storms tho. and not much rain, so my basement didn't flood.
Posted by: Lisa | June 21, 2009 at 08:02 PM
Holy crap! Crazy! Now, be honest, how many times did you walk in a room and try to turn the lights on during the outage? I think I did it about 20 times during our last outage & it was only a couple hours! lol
Posted by: Jenny | June 21, 2009 at 09:29 PM
That was a long time without power and drats!! about the food and battery for the sump pump, but at least you were able to get a lot of knitting done. Also, its a wake up call for me to check our flash lights.. now if I can remember where I put them.
Posted by: sheila | June 21, 2009 at 10:05 PM
OH Man that so sucks about all the food! Our fridge died when we were in Vegas over spring break and that sucked to throw out all the food (and pay to fix the fridge) I'm glad you got lots of knitting done though!!
Posted by: Michelle | June 21, 2009 at 10:20 PM
I totally know what that is like! Sucks to be without power and to loose food.....but great to relax and get all the knitting done. Can't wait to see the almost finished knits!
Posted by: Lara | June 21, 2009 at 11:45 PM
Sorry about the outage, but I know when we're unplugged there's a nice simplicity that happens.
Posted by: Katie J | June 22, 2009 at 12:04 AM
Sorry to hear you had such awful weather, plus losing your food and power. The two knitting projects will forever remind you of this weekend when you wear them!
I dread our losing power at some point. We have a well here which makes life especially inconvenient.
Posted by: Debby | June 22, 2009 at 06:56 AM
Oh no!! Will your Homeowners insurance help pay to replace the food? Sometimes they will...
Glad for the knitting progress though- that's great!
Posted by: Shelby | June 22, 2009 at 07:54 AM
I hope it wasn't too hot there (we'll be in Chicago this weekend, so I'm hoping for nice weather)! A power outage here would create serious health concerns (it hit 100 this week)! Good excuse to clean the fridge, though. Maybe I need an outage after all.
Posted by: Silvia | June 22, 2009 at 08:12 AM
44 hours? YIKES! Glad to hear that you got some knitting done though! It's amazing what you can accomplish when not sitting in front of the computer. :)
Posted by: Stephanie | June 22, 2009 at 12:19 PM
Completely nonknitting, but hopefully helpful. Check with your insurance company. They may cover the cost of the food you lost. Mine did when we lost ours after a hurricane. Good luck
Posted by: Melissa | June 23, 2009 at 02:53 PM
Yeah, not fun to have the power go out. We lost power for 5 days once. Luckily the food could be placed outside to keep cold, the gas fireplace and hotwater tank worked so we could stay warm by the fire and take hot showers, and the gas stove worked so we could cook. The kids had a blast! I did a lot of reading and knitting by flashlight and listened to my ipod (that I could recharge in my car!)
Posted by: tiennie | June 23, 2009 at 10:25 PM
That is too bad. Sometimes around here, Con Edison will give you some vouchers to cover at least a bit of the lost food. And like the others, I'd suggest you check your homeowner's policy.
It's good that you got knitting done. Sometimes it is too dark to do even that.
Posted by: marjorie | June 24, 2009 at 04:03 PM
I hear you on the unpleasantness. We got our power back about midnight Sat night. Of course it had to be extremely hot and humid that weekend. We went from April to August weather in the blink of an eye.
Posted by: Heather R | June 24, 2009 at 04:08 PM
Oh...these kind of days are awful! I remember one Christmas, about 5 years ago, when there was an ice storm and we lost power for 2 1/2 days. Cold as heck and we didn't have backup heat. Although we didn't lose our food LOL. It was a miserable start to Christmas, but I learned a valuable lesson--pick up some kerosene heaters for emergency heat.
I don't know how to knit, Robin, but losing power with all electric machines is a definite bummer. Makes me wish I had a treadle. Those are the times when I look for my knits to cut them out *IF* my pattern pieces aren't too wrinkly. 'Cuz then I'd need my iron too...
Posted by: Kat | August 09, 2009 at 07:46 AM