We burn lots of candles at night when it's dark (we do have a generator, but we try to run it as little as possible).
We're making lots of trips to Lowes, first for parts to hook the generator up to the house's main line, and then the next day to pick up plants and mulch to work on gardening projects (since the power was out, anyway).
I check email, read blogs, and write posts from my improvised "office" at our local Sam's Club (about ten minutes from the house). It's the closest place I know of with working internet (our cable modem is still down).
I found out the wifi was working there when we went for a few groceries (we didn't really need much- I think I just wanted to get out of the house more than anything) the day after the storms, and took my iPad along to read on because I knew the lines would be a little long. Imagine my surprise when the wifi indicator popped on! I did a little happy dance, then proceeded to download the newest episodes of the Paperclipping podcasts. :)
I'm still getting some scrapping done (I promise better photos when the power is back on).
The mail is still running, and on Thursday I received an order from TwoPeas that I'd placed last week. It's all so pretty that I nearly cried! (sorry again for the horrific iPhone photo).
As an aside, UPS and FedEx are still running, too. I ordered a cast iron dutch oven from Amazon on Thursday thinking that it might arrive (and be a great substitute crock pot) some time before the power came back on (we have Amazon Prime). The silly thing showed up on my doorstep on Friday! :)
I'm learning exactly what the generator will and will not run. For example. The mixer? No problem- I used it to make cinnamon rolls on Friday. The dishwasher, though, is a no-go, as is the washing machine. Luckily I was caught up on the laundry before last Thursday. The dishes are getting washed by hand as needed.
We work on projects when and where there is light. In the morning/early afternoon, that means the living room and dining room (where I have all my stuff for our Aruba scrapbook spread out). In the evening the sun is on the back of the house where our offices are, so I make layouts and Darren cleans and organizes his tools.
We're both pretty happy right now that I'm a silly goose who often leaves her car lights on. That means I had this nifty jump-start battery in my trunk and charged up. We now use it to charge our cell phones when the generator isn't running (and we charge the battery itself when the generator is on).
We're finding that the stores still have most all of the essentials in stock, though produce is hard to come by, and it took me a day to find a place that had milk in stock (I walked two doors down from a store Darren had stopped at and found some at a corner Walgreens). I'm a bit embarrassed that I got caught out of that! As for the produce, though, it's good timing because the lettuce in our garden is really starting to take off.
The freezer cases, though? It's so weird to see those totally empty at Target...
We have flashlights and lanterns all over the house, and we find interesting ways to prop them up while we work. Note the headlamp that Darren was using while slicing our fajita steak last night (thank goodness for our gas range).
We had church service in the front parking lot of Willowbrook this morning, with several hundred in attendance. News travels slowly right now while most places are still without power, so this was the first chance we had to find out about volunteer opportunities around us. We plan on finding a place to pitch in and help tomorrow.
All in all, we have absolutely nothing to complain about. Darren even found Gouda cheese for me at Target yesterday (my favorite for using in sandwich wraps), so you know that we're doing just fine. We can't say that for the rest of the state, though. Please continue to pray for and support those people in any way that you can, because many of them lost everything. Power or no power, we're definitely the lucky ones right now.