In The Dark

We went to the lake again this past weekend, and it was, again, wonderful. I don't know what it is about it this year, but it is just such a relaxing and wonderful experience for me. I think it's because number 1, I'm a mom and have a son that now adores the water (yay), and number 2, I have had a really stressful past couple of months (whole other blog post - but, you probably won't see one because it's a tad personal for me to share here). Anyway, I wish we could hop in the car every Friday afternoon and head down there. I love it.

We got back in yesterday afternoon, and after his bath and a fairly early supper, Bennett was in bed by 7:30. Josh asked me to help him bottle his latest batch of beer, so I did. We were still "lakified," as Josh calls it. But that was okay, because I knew I'd be able to get a shower and go to bed clean. While we bottled the beer, we talked about grilling hot dogs over at Grandpa's (next door). Our grill bit the dust this spring, so we use the one Daddy put next door. Well, it started raining. I told Josh I'd still go over there and grill a couple of dogs. Who cares if I get a little wet getting there?

Well, it got harder. And harder. And then the thunder and lightning start. I said to Josh, "Let's just both go over there and grill 'em. It's under the carport. Unless that metal carport gets struck, we'll be fine." Before Josh could agree or disagree with that suggestion (which I'm not sure I totally meant), the power flickered. Came back on. Flick-flickered. On again. Flicker flicker flicker, aaaaannnnddd... done. It was gone.

It's now 8:30 and it's dark and we're hungry and dirty. It's storming like crazy outside and we can't see anything in our house. We both go rummaging for some candles and start lighting them and placing them around the house. What are we going to do about supper? Josh had suggested boiling them, since we have a gas range, but I'd rather just eat potato chips than a boiled hot dog. They are soooo much better grilled. So Josh built a square base out of aluminum foil and placed a small metal cooling rack on top of one of our gas burners and, presto! We were grillin'! Woo hoo!


So we ate our hot dogs and we weren't hungry anymore, but we were still dirty. Even though I've always been told that it's dangerous to take a shower while it's storming (I still don't know if it truly is), try spending three days at the lake without taking a shower (did I mention this is a very rustic cabin?) and then come home and get in your own bed dirty. Um, no.

So, upstairs we go to light up the bathroom. We each took a candle-lit shower. It was actually very nice; I may try it again. Especially since it was in our.... drum roll please.... MASTER SHOWER!!! What?!? We actually used our master bathroom for something other than going to the bathroom in the middle of the night?


In case you don't know, which you probably don't unless you are my parents, Josh's parents, my brothers or Lauren, we have now lived in our house for 2 months shy of 5 years, and we had never used our master shower until last night. I don't really feel like getting into why because, quite frankly, I don't know exactly why. All I know is the tile got wet and I got clean!

After our showers, Josh and I got in bed and I melted his heart by inquiring about his brewing process. He could have talked about that all night. He would finish telling me something and say, "What else do you want to know?" "Do you have any more questions?" "Come on, ask me something else." He loved that I was interested in it. I usually am anyway, but I guess I caught him off guard, randomly asking about it while lying in bed.

The power came back on around 3:00 this morning, and after going downstairs to let Stewie out, Josh informed me that we didn't have to worry about that huge limb that's been hanging on the power line for so long.... because it was now resting on my car. Great. I decided to just go back to sleep and assess the damage in the morning. Thankfully, Josh wasn't able to see very well at 3am, and the limb ever so narrowly missed hitting my car at all. It was just leaning against the back of my car. One tiny little scratch was all that was there. The limb was probably about 8 or 10 feet long and about 7 inches in diameter. It could really have done some damage. What a relief!

All I could think about while getting back to sleep was, great. What's our deductible? How bad is it? What's this going to cost us? That, unfortunately, has been my mentality about everything lately, and one major reason for the tough last couple of months... grrr. BUT - I can put those thoughts to rest because we are in the clear.

So, we are rested from the weekend at the lake, happy to have a gas range, now utilizing all the rooms in our house, and thankful for the well positioned tree in our driveway. Okay, okay, it was the car that was well positioned. Tree sounds better.

We had a good weekend. And I love thunderstorms. :)