A Different kind of "Dark Stitching"

       One of the the things I look forward to the most is when dinner is done, kids are getting ready for bed and I can begin to sit down and stitch. Well, on January 10th, things didn't quite go as I had planned.

       A 'lovely' wind storm was moving through our area. Our family just had dinner and finished cleaning up the table. We were getting ready to let the kids watch something on TV before we started bathtime. I was preparing my stitchy spot to start on Pinocchio for the night when, (Zhhooop) our power went out. It was about 8pm and now our kids were frozen in fear of the sudden darkness. Let me say our power nevers goes out. The only other time was during a lightning strike that blew out our motherboard to our furnace a couple springs ago and that's it. We figured the wind really must of blown something over. Now, since that lightning storm, we have kept a good supply of candles, weather radio, flashlights and extras batteries ready just in case. My husband calming gets the candles and flashlights out of the cupboards. I went ahead and lit the 2 tiny Yankee Candles I had on a small shelf, even though our power is out, we can still enjoy a good smelling home, right? My husband grabbed his new "tactical flashlight" he got for Christmas. MAN! that thing can light up a WHOLE room. The kids were already asking when the power was coming back on.  I told them. I don't know. We aren't the only ones without power.  I was already dialing the number to report our power outage to the city. We were informed they would send someone out as soon as they could.

What it really looked like. Only glow coming from the Tactical flashlight

Finishing our 'dancing'

     
Now the challenge.....keeping 4 children (and a husband) entertained until we got our power back. I grab a flashlight and collected some PJ's for the kids to change into. Nobody was getting a bath tonight, not in the dark anyways. Once dressed in their pajamas, they had a mirco "Random Blackout Dance Party" (thank you ICarly) with music from Daddy's tablet. They then decided they had to find anything they could that had batteries (ex. Tablet, DS  or smartphone) and use them while they still had any charge left.

Playing our DS

Posing.....others are oblivious to the photos

I still wanted to stitch. I had it in my mind to find a way no matter what. I remembered I had a battery operated OttLite .  YEA! This will help. Now, what to stitch. Pinnochio was out of the question. Too many colors. I didn't want to have to frog just because I decided to stitch in the dark. I tried another project, but was in the mood to count a zillion times in the dark either. I settled on Little House needleworks- "Peter, Peter". Little counting. Big blocks of color. Easy to hold in hand. It did pretty well. I could see just enough of what I was doing not to feel nervous about frogging it later.

My ottLite

Too much counting to do in the dark

My version of "Dark Stitching" on Peter, Peter

      After about 2 hours, all kids asleep and still no power. But i was making progress on the pumpkin I was stitching. The candlelight and Ottlite was just enough for my Stitchy Bug. My husband then opened a podcast to listen to when we waited. We finally saw a utility truck in our neighborhood being escorted by police about 11pm. But apparently it wasn't going to be a "quick" fix. With no power even at midnight, we decided to head off to bed. We could only hope it would fixed by morning. So, we sat 4 different alarms on phones, and tablets to insure my husband wouldn't be late for work the morning.

     Finally at 530am, our power was back. 9 hours of darkness. Longest we have even been without power. Thankfully it wasn't too cold out. Our house was able to stay warm most of the night on its own. I just know it would have been a lot more stressful and annoying if I wasn't able to do "Dark Stitching" (No October needed)