Hawk in the snow…
Ilana Kohn Tuck Coveralls (medium – they don’t really fit LOL)
Dansko LT-pro clogs
Wow. What a week we had last week. Without being too dramatic, it was mildly traumatizing. I don’t think I felt that when we were “in it” but afterwards I wanted to sleep all the time, I felt worn out, and completely unmotivated. A week later, I feel much better finally.
And I know we didn’t have it as bad as some. What happened here in Texas last week was inexcusable (I know other parts of the country was also affected by the winter storm, but didn’t suffer the power outages that we did here) and devastating. I hope it won’t ever happen again, but I don’t have a lot of hope for Texas politics. There are a lot of very interesting articles that go deep on why Texas was unique with regard to power outages, and the gist of it is that we have a GIGANTIC unregulated energy market here; It’s a free-for-all basically. Yes, it serves industrial users and individual users well at times, and can be more affordable during times of low energy usage, but as we just saw, it is completely devastating in an emergency. Anyway.
We started to having legit rolling outages very early Monday morning, around 1 AM or so. The power would be on for a while, then go out for an hour, then on again, but then at 6 we started to feel very cold and noticed it hadn’t come back on. We went to go get Hawk from his room and bring him in the bed with us to stay warm, but he woke up and was PISSED lol. So we were all awake and getting colder. Until Wednesday mid-morning, we didn’t have electricity basically.
For us, the rolling outages turned into no power for 7-8 hours, then power for one, off again for 7-8, on again for one and so on. It got down to the low 40’s in the house. We ran the gas fireplace for some warmth but it is in our living area which is huge and with VERY high ceilings, so we didn’t get a lot from it, but it was something. We brought the mattress down from upstairs to put on the floor in front of the fireplace and brought all the furniture into the room we were in and arranged it around the mattress. Then, I found literally EVERY SINGLE BLANKET we had in the house and piled them on the mattress.
I wore a wool layering tee under my girlfriend fleece, a buff merino neck warmer and a cashmere hat, double socks, and my all birds wool loungers and was still cold. Hawk had on pajamas with pants and a tee on top, and his fleece jacket with his hood up. Also double socks. My biggest problem with all of this was the feeling that I was failing my child on some very basic level; I couldn’t even keep him warm. That was traumatic.
Everything was just cold. We didn’t change clothes for two days because it was warmer just staying in what we had on. No way did we take showers/baths. Whenever the power came on we quickly boiled as much water as we could for coffee and to warm our hands later, and warmed up food. I had the freezer/fridge pretty well stocked with things we could eat cold, so we were good on food. We had water, which is more than a lot of people had. We were just very cold.
In the midst of all this, we had to pull out of the contract we had on the house in the ATL area. It was a crazy situation, and disappointing, but not too (that house was going to take A LOT OF WORK and we were getting overwhelmed by it), so we had to start looking again. So when we had power again, all the stress of remote house-hunting started again. Ugh.
Good news is that we are under contract on another house now, and it will not require so much work to just move in. It’s walking distance from my sister, and very close to my mother, has a huge back yard and is a modified ranch, which is just what we wanted. Hopefully this one will work out…
Again, I know we didn’t have it as badly as some (Austin seemed to get the double whammy of no power/no water) and we came out the other side relatively unscathed. Hawk didn’t even seem to notice anything amiss, except he couldn’t watch the BBC ocean videos he likes on YouTube haha. And it was much too cold to spend any time outside in the snow, even if he did have the appropriate clothes. We went out for a couple of minutes once or twice to take pictures and that was it.
Onward.
I hope you and yours are okay, and didn’t suffer too much with the latest winter storm. Or Covid-19. Or anything else.
Boring would be nice for a while 🙂
I was thinking about you and wondering how ya’ll were… We kept water and power. On Friday, end of the day, we found our sewer line was partially frozen! Easy fix by renting a snake at Home Depot. Oh the perks of living in a 100 year old house 🙂 Like you, tired and fortunate to make it through. Sad that you are moving but I know you are so happy to be moving close to family!
So sorry to hear your troubles! I had read that for some, popping up a tent in the house, arranged with blankets and pillows, helped to keep some warmth in. I’m adding one to our emergency kit! Hope the home sale goes smoothly.
Glad you’re ok! I thought of sending you some tips on how to deal with rolling blackouts in the middle of winter, but then I realized you might need to save all the power on your devices for
emergencies/family. I know you’re ok now ’cause of what you’re wearing in your selfie. I couldn’t wear that even indoors where I live hahaha! Life,, right? Down to the essentials!
Oh I’m sitting outside right now and am HOT. It went from 0 to 80 here in less than a week …!!!
Hi Grechen,
I’m glad to hear your family came through that okay, though I’m sorry that you went through it. Wishing you some boring, old, nothing-happening days : )
So sorry you had to go through that and I will cross my fingers for your new house and some BORING!
I hope things will change in Texas! I’m especially glad that you found another house that will work better for you in Atlanta. What a wonderful thing to be so close to your sis and mom. Hawk will love it!
When my hubby was a forest ranger in WI they had a weather station on-grounds and they’d report in (to whomever collects those kind of things!); The local school would call him on super-chilly winter mornings to get the temp and the rule was “If it’s above zero, the kids go outside for recess”! ?
My mom’s rule was that if it was below 10 below zero, I could get a ride to school. I lived about a 40 minute walk from school if I walked fast. Boy did I keep an eye on that thermostat every morning!!!! If we’d had the well designed winter clothing we have now, back then, I probably wouldn’t have received any rides at all haha. Now it’s no bad weather, just bad clothes philosophy 😉
I was wondering about you, Grechen. So glad you made it through, and glad you’re finding a new home in Atlanta, close to family. The help you crave will be there now! And the jumpsuit looks FAB on you! If you ever change your mind, please hit me up, LOL! Take good, good care.