Weird Things I've Done During Power Outages
Like an episode of Alone, but with mozzarella sticks
Here I am, literally just a country mouse, trying meet work deadlines, get my chores done, and have a somewhat normal lifestyle despite living in the middle of nowhere and then BOOM, plunged into darkness. Other times, we’re asleep and then the sound machine turns off suddenly—at which point, I can literally hear everything including the neighbors’ auto-on generator, their 7 children and Michael Phelps the goose lodging his complain about the wifi being down.
Power outages are… disruptive, to say the least.
But power outages are also an opportunity for some truly unhinged behaviors. Behaviors that are often at the expense of my sanity (and sometimes bodily safety) and are definitely ridiculous. An outage is an event that derails my day, makes me feel like a character from the Oregon Trail and an Alone participant—all at once. In my mind, I’m truly roughing it, cancel my meetings and call my mom cuz I may not survive.
And yes, we have a generator.
On a related note, just a reminder that my list of recommended emergency supplies will always be a free resource to whoever needs it.
Our Emergency Preparedness Guide
As an accident-prone person now living in the middle of nowhere, there’s been a steep learning curve when it comes to actually feeling prepared for emergencies and disasters. Like, there’s a very specific feeling of knowing you can handle an emergency because you’re prepared (vs the alternative which I never want to experience ever again). Throughout al…
Painting Half of the House
It’s no secret that our first renovation was cursed from the start. From a tree crashing down literally over our heads while we were sleeping to our first major power outage, that period of my life is one I look back on with both weariness and pride. The latter because we survived and the former because I’m fairly certain painting the house without running water and electricity shaved multiple years off my life.
During this particular outage, we became painfully aware that our well pump requires electricity to, ya know, pull water from the ground and deliver it to our house. In hindsight, this is a big ole DUH. But with only 5 months of rural life under our belts, it was not something we’d often considered. Especially given that we had moved into a cat urine soaked house, knew no one and Sean was working in the city Monday-Thursday.
But I was on a deadline because the project was a sponsored campaign, so despite our misgivings about what the hell we’d done buying this cabin, the show must go on! First came the frenzy of late night generator research, followed by a panicked 1.5 hour drive to Lowe’s to acquire said generator before they closed for the night (plus a first for me, a palette of bottled water). Followed by filling approximately 32 empty milk jugs with water from a local dog park spigot, then arriving home some time around 1 am to resume spraying paint by the light of my soft box.
And about those milk jugs: our root cellar, which I’ve since deloused and transformed into a Purrfect Purple Pantry called Cat Hell™️, was lined with shelves FULL of them. Each jug was filled with emergency water, graciously left behind by the previous owners. But, as with anything involving the former owners, there was a caveat: plastic absorbs odors. Meaning that ALL of the emergency “drinking” water was cat piss flavored, sort of like how a La Croix has just a kiss of flavor—but with ammonia! Deeming this water non-potable, we used it to flush the toilets and nothing else.
The Sponge Bath
During the same outage, I took the first “sponge bath” of my life with cold, non-Cat Hell™️ water. Air quotes because I didn’t have a sponge, but instead used a kitchen dishtowel because it was all I could find since we had literally just moved in—and because it actually consisted of me sobbing, Ace Ventura-style, regretting all of the life choices that had brought me to that moment.
About halfway through, I realized that I did have the ability to actually heat the water—which resulted in me naked, dripping water, in the kitchen lighting the propane stovetop with a match and proceeding to singe my arm hair off up to my forearm, all so I could heat up a sauce pan of water.
It was day 3.5 of our first outage ever and morale was very, very low.
The Mozzarella Sticks
