That's it... I'm getting a Blackberry

What an odd thing it was to wake up this morning to a dark, dark house. Thanks to my pal NJ's practical thinking during a gift exchange last Christmas, I had the Brookstone hand-cranked flashlight readily available so I could find out what time it was when we first woke up and realized the power was out. The flashlight helped me to set up some candles and then to go down into the black, black parking garage so I could listen to the car radio and find out if the schools were open or not. You see, the reason that we had no power was because there was this freak snowstorm last night, kinda like the normal snowstorms that Canadians pretty much everywhere else are used to seeing at this time of year. But here it's pretty unusual.

So, we found out the kids' schools were open (good, because it meant we could drop them off somewhere with heat - ours is electric baseboard heaters, so it was pretty cold in here) and that my school was closed (also good, because there is no way in hell I was going up those steep mountain roads in this weather and I hate missing a class). We somehow managed to scrounge together some breakfast for Megan and me, the hot breakfast eaters in the house. I ate a cold piece of leftover salmon to stave off hypoglycemia and bundled the kids up while Jeff gave our snow shovel its first workout in 3 years. Somehow the local road crews managed to pull it together and the roads were not at all bad so Megan and Calum got to school on time. Then Jeff took some time out from his busy work schedule to buy me breakfast at the EA cafeteria. I NEED my bacon and eggs in the morning.

Back home, I was quite happy to sit and read my book in the cold, cold apartment, but geez was it ever quiet without the hum of the computer and the clacking of the keyboard. I was forced to put off my essential morning email check till after 11 am, when the power finally came back on. The day just doesn't feel right without email in the morning.