Sunday, March 20, 2011

A Quiet Afternoon

"Home by noon, eat, and in the garage by 1:00." Zac stated his afternoon goal proudly as we drove home from church. He started a new woodworking project recently and has been spending every possible moment working on it in the garage.

We pulled into the driveway, shut off the car, and walked into the house. I hit the light switch in the kitchen, and nothing happened. It was then that I noticed our digital clocks were not showing me the time, and the refrigerator was very quiet. Our power was out.

Just in case you were wondering, it's very difficult to use power tools when the power is out.

We decided to keep moving forward with our plans to eat lunch. Our original hope to reheat leftovers was readjusted because our microwave wasn't working and also our electric stove. We had a lunch of whatever we could find in the pantry, and a few items we bravely stole out of the refrigerator as we opened it and closed it as fast as possible.

1:00...still no power. I called the electric company and received a message that said power should be restored by 2:00. Hmmm...1 more hour. Zac's 2nd favorite thing to do on a Sunday afternoon is take a nap, so he laid down and set his phone alarm clock to wake him up at 2:00.

2:00...still no power. Now what?

"Hey! Let's watch a movie-aw, never mind."

"Maybe we can book vacation tickets - oh, I guess the computer won't work."

"We could play the wii-"

"I could do the laundry-"

"I could balance the checkbook-"

"I could do some baking-"

I don't know if I ever realized how many of our daily activities rely on electricity! It's incredible! It seemed that everything we wanted to do, we couldn't.

One fun thing Zac and I have been doing lately is reading a book aloud together. We started this book when we took a 6-hour road trip to Bismarck, ND. We decided to finish it today while we were without power, so we used the daylight coming in through the windows to read the last chapters together. That was really fun!

I picked up a magazine that I don't often get time to read, and flipped through the articles, enjoying the quiet time. Occasionally I'd just look up from the page and stare off into space, thinking.

We decided to go outside for a run. It was misty out and everything smelled of Spring from the night's rain. Glorious!

My favorite thing, though, was how quiet our house was. There was no hum from the dehumidifier downstairs or the refrigerator upstairs. There was no high-pitched whine of the computer. No bass line floated through the house from a stereo. It was simply quiet.

I've always enjoyed stories about the pioneer days, and secretly wished I could have lived back then. I wonder if this is what Sundays were like for them. Silence, fellowship, reading, and peace. I liked the chance to experience that today.

And, in case you're wondering, our power came on again at 4pm and as I write this blog, Zac is in the garage working! :)

No comments:

Post a Comment