Saturday, December 15, 2007

BEAUTY IN THE BEAST...

After the ice storms this past week all the leafless trees looked like they were made of crystal. Absolutely beautiful.
But the downside to that beauty was the power outages that were caused by those weighted-down branches breaking under the weight of all the ice and falling on power lines.

Andrew was off work by 1:30pm on Wednesday and my office closed at 1:00pm and sent everyone home because of the impending weather. Ice storms had been forecasted for a huge portion of Iowa. We made it home at about the same time and were enjoying an afternoon at home together when the power flashed a few times and then everything went dark and silent. Isn't it amazing how much noise is going on all around you in your home that you don't notice until the power goes out? The constant hum of the computer, the heating system, the refrigerator and various other things we hear in the background everyday but we just become used to.

Silence.

I think the first words to break that sudden silence were "Shit. Now what?"
Without power, there would be no heat. We don't have a fireplace in this house, so that was not an option. It was about 30 degrees outside and our house was built in 1958 when natural gas was cheap and insulation was something that wasn't used in much abundance. I knew there was little or no insulation in this house from many of the remodel projects I've done here. After a couple of hours, it was becoming dark. We have a lot of candles in our house because we like the ambiance of them and we use them all the time. we had plenty of light throughout the house with all of the candles lit, but they weren't doing much to help with warmth.
About dinnertime we decided the best thing to do was go out. We both were in the mood for Mexican so we headed for our favorite place. Closed. Fine, we went a little further to our next choice. Closed. What's with the Mexicans in this town?? They've never seen a little snow and ice? Our next option was open so we went in, had dinner and more than a few margaritas. Hey, if we were going to have to brave the cold all night, we might as well utilize as many methods as possible to stay warm!
We got back home around 9:00pm and the power was back on and the house was warm again. We were the lucky ones. Some parts of town were without power for almost 3 days.
This was the only tree limb casualty we had in our yard. Oh well, it will make some good fuel for the outdoor fire pit next spring.

9 Comments:

Blogger TheBuxStopHere said...

Pretty first picture...ugly second picture. Do me a favor...pick up that tree!

4:39 PM, December 15, 2007  
Blogger Matt said...

Wow - bossy. ;)

I think they're both pretty. Of course, there's no snow or ice here ...

6:23 PM, December 15, 2007  
Blogger Darth Gateau said...

We heard of the ice storms here in the UK. We were all muttering about freezing fog and chilly temperatures until we heard what was going on where you are. Hope everything is back to normal now!

2:27 PM, December 16, 2007  
Blogger Sooo-this-is-me said...

The first picture is beautiful. We are not getting ice but tons of snow snow snow! Good thing the power came back on, wouldn't want you guys to freeze.

Steven

2:41 PM, December 16, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"outdoor fire pit next spring." Does that mean that someone will FINALLY get around to starting/finishing the patio and invite me over??? I sure hope so! hehehe

7:43 PM, December 16, 2007  
Blogger Mike said...

Trees covered in ice are beautiful... if there were just a way to keep the ice from everything else.

9:26 PM, December 20, 2007  
Blogger Rick Rockhill said...

while I don't think I could handle being in a cold climate again, I must say it really is very pretty. Nice pics

12:13 PM, December 23, 2007  
Blogger cb said...

We had an ice storm a few years back in North Carolina. I was one of the lucky ones and was only without power 2.5 days. Others went weeks.

It was beautiful though-- once all the powerlines and limbs were cleaned up.

7:51 AM, December 28, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That first photo is INCREDIBLE. We haven’t had a good ice storm here in years. I hate the whole power outage thing, but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful.

10:40 AM, December 30, 2007  

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