CANDLES & FLASHLIGHTS

It has been an interesting night. My hubby and I ate our dinner and then settled down to watch some television around 8 pm. About halfway through the show, there was a loud bang. He said it must be thunder. Shortly afterwards, the power blinked on and off. We tried to get back to the show we were watching and once again the power blinked on and off. My husband used his cell phone to call the power company. They told him they’d check into it. A few seconds later the power went out again, on and off.  Then totally off. We sat in total darkness for a few moments trying to get our wits about us. Then my husband  got a text message saying 1500 people had been affected and power would be restored by 2:30 am. We shall see. It’s now 9:15pm. I’m using auxiliary power from my computer to type this. It gives me 10 to 15 minutes to operate before shutting down. Fingers are crossed this gets fixed soon. Meanwhile, using the cell phone light to guide us… we were able to locate two flashlights and a couple camping lanterns, making room to room navigation much easier. Of course there are always candles. Thank you… Yankee Candle, Chesapeake and Tuscany for my ample array of them. At first, we decided to ride out the darkness, sitting in the glow of ambient light from artificial means. But after a while, the conversation waned and we were dozing off. So we decided to take our rear ends into the bedroom and go to sleep. 

I’ll update when I can, later.

I’m back. Around 1:15am I was awakened by the light on my nightstand coming on. Hurray the power is back. I got up, powered on my computer, then went into the kitchen to take my meds. I take 15 pills a day. After that was done, I got myself a big glass of ice water and went to check a local website to see what had caused the outage. Unfortunately, no information is available. So I’m  headed back to sleep. On the dresser… I have a 3ft. Christmas Tree. I turn the lights on before climbing into bed every night. When I clicked the button on, I noticed the lights were very bright and the colors appeared to be washed out. This was unusual, but I was tired and I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. I remember thinking before I drifted off, please don’t let it start a fire. When I awoke 4 hours later, the room was pitch black. I wondered if the power had gone out, yet again? My husband was wide awake and confirmed it had not. He said the lights on the tree had blown, probably from a surge that had hit the line when the power went out or came back on. I don’t understand how it all worked, but I’m upset my tree is now kaput. As you all know… In the past year, I have had four pre-lit Christmas trees of various sizes, bite the dust, that had to be replaced. They were seriously flawed, with little warranty protection from the various manufacturers. I’m frustrated and fed up with the shoddy workmanship of these brands. I suppose this puts me back in the market for another tree before the holiday comes. That will make five replacement trees. But right now, I’m too upset to even start a new tree search. I don’t know if the power outage caused the weak link leading to the tree’s demise or not?  I’m just grateful no other serious damage resulted. I can only imagine if the television had been affected? My husband would be on the war path, instead of me. So now, I’m making a cup of Harney & Sons pumpkin tea to calm me down. Have you ever experienced residual effects from a power outage? Or had to replace as many Christmas trees, as I have in a year?