The Things We Take For Granted

I was use to all that then hubby took me to his home. all they had was lights. no running water no bathroom we kept warm by a fireplace cooked with wood . HIs brother didnt have light so he used coleman lanterns with kerosene. . I did this for 4 years. then we went back on the road for work. Today I set and wonder how we got from one house to the other in the dark for boy was it dark.

Yaaaa! Your back! I was thinking of you today and wondering how you were making out with no electric. Your so right we do take it for granted. Now are they done? Or just done for the day? Im glad your computer is up and running okay. I can just imagine the withdrawl you were going through. Welcome back!hehehehe

We moved back home to northern Alberta in 1969 and the only house available was a couple miles out of town and it had no conveniences! No electricity, no running water, no heat, but a wood stove and very cheap rent! Wonder why?lol! During the winter we would pay so much for a truck load of wood, nearby was the river and we would chop a hole in the ice and take turns to fetch our water a couple times a day, i was with dad once when one of his legs fell through the ice, very scary, for light we had globe lamps which used coal-oil and mantle lamps that used hi-test gas or naptha! Later on be bought a 12 volt TV which ran on car batteries, we became popular in our little community! lol! I don't have any regrets, but i wouldn't want to go back to that lifestyle! Five years of it! Take care Pyewacket.

Yippie it's on earlier than you were expecting :) So glad you're back and up playing with us :) There was a bad snow storm once in 1993 I think - and we lost power for several days as we lived out in the middle of nowhere. The silence gets to me more than anything. We cooked some meals on our kerosene heater, had all our food out side on the porch, slept in the living room...it was wild. But the funny thing is I don't remember being really bothered by it - except when I went to the bathroom. Did I mention I'm afraid of seeing things in the dark?! LOL. My sister-in-law and the kids lost power for over a week last year in MO's bad ice storm. They really had it rough with two 11 year olds and a 16 year old to try and entertain, keep warm and fed. They said it was so cold they'd hold their pee until absolutely necessary to avoid leaving the living room where they had blankets put up blocking drafts. The roads were bad too so the first few days no one could go anywhere in town - not that it matter at first because much of the town was without electric.

I know what you were going through.In my area we are thunderstorm prone.For a while it seemed like every July we had a storm that would take out the lights. That was about a few years back, before I had a computer. I would just listen to a battery powered radio. But the worst time was when Hurricane Isabella hit and we lost our electricity for a week.It was in September and it was eerie. There were no street lights at night.Unless you had a strong flashlight, you had to do everything you needed light in the day.Luckily my family and I went to a restaurant out of town that Sunday and got to see the football games. The restaurant had electricity but not running water. So we had canned sodas with our drinks because the fountains didn't work.It was wild.

I hate it when there is a problem with my electric, or water. I get so frustrated and so depressed. If there's no electric or water, I feel like I can't function. When my kids were little, there was a long time, that we lived in places, with no running water. It was awful, and I'd hate going back to that.

You've taken me back to the 1987 hurricane, in England. It was named Hurricane Andrew. The weather forecast came on the tv, and Michael Fish, the weather forecaster had received a call from a woman who said that there was a hurricane in the channel, coming towards the south coast of England. I lived in Brighton at the time, on the south coast. Michael Fish discounted the call, as a hoax. Sobeit... nobody was prepared for the storm that raged across England from the south coast approximately two hours later. Winds were 115 mph, mobile homes were tossed over and wrecked, tiles were wrenched from roofs, and trees were torn from the ground, roots and all. Woods were devastated, and yup, you guessed it, power and phone lines were down, everywhere. The hurricane lasted for over twelve hours, electricity was lost, communication was lost and with the freezers all out, only places with emergency power could do anything. My electricity was off for only about three days, but in some parts, this ran into months. I had a gas cooker so I could at least manage to boil water for drinks and cook. Those with electric cookers, I helped out with boiling water and even cooked for them at times, but food had to be bought from day to day and shops only opened for part of it. It was a long three days with no tv, music, news of what was happening elsewhere, lights, or anything. Again, I was lucky in that my heating was powered by gas but many were left in the cold, hungry, no communication and desolate. We're very lucky in this country, in that hurricanes are very rare, but I do feel for the people of Florida when the hurricanes hit. Brightest Blessings.

I remember when we were having our bathroom refurbished we were without a bath for a few days. It was horrible having to wash at a sink and taking my kids round to our families home to give them a bath was a real pain. At the moment we are in a two bedroom flat and my partner and I have given our bedroom to our daughter so she does not have to share with her younger brother anymore. Our bed is now in the livingroom and it is horrible. We are waiting for a 3 bedroom and when we get it I will be so happy to get back to normality. Not having my own room is hard and it feels like a bedsit. Hopefully we will only have to put up with this for another couple of months.

You are so right. This morning, I put my clothes in the washer, it worked, and then I checked the dryer, the clothes I had put in the day before were still damp, so I said, it would be easier to put both loads together. So I put it on "just above regular heat" turned the on switch, and nothing happened. We could open the machine, and the light would go on, but the dryer would not dry. Now you have to realize that we lived in Manitoba, and in Winnipeg, where at this time of year, the sky is overcast and besides we have no outer clothes line and I do not have enough money to buy one of those portables. So here I was hanging clothes over the shower pole in the washroom, over the billiard table, over various chairs, and over the ironing board. Oh and do not get me started on when the electricity goes off because lightening struck the power station, and when our cable decides to turn off the cable system because they are fixing the streets, someone digs in the strong site. People say they can do without, but when the crunch comes, they need it.

Hey where is your emergency kit with you little radio and batteries? I glad to see your back. Fortunately I grew up in the country and currently live in a little canyon know one realises is here. So when our power goes bye bye I cook on the wood stove, have lots of oil lamps, candles, flashlights. If anything happens to our water, wee have a creak. Now for the bordom , Break out the cards or a book. And still go stir crazy cause I can't get on the net lol

I sure do know where you're coming from! We were without water for less than 24 hours a few weeks ago and I was going nuts! My brother was in from New Jersey so he went and got a bunch lf gallon jugs of water, but it was still awful not to have running water. I don't think I'd have made a very good "pioneer" woman; can you even imagine washing clothes in the creek or river and heating water on the stove for a bath, all that wonderful fun stuff? No thank you, I'm quite spoiled by the modern conveniences we have and I whine like a baby when one is taken away even for a short time. Annie

What you say is very true, pyewacket, because we do have a tendency to take so many things for granted. Through the years I have developed the practice of occasionally depriving myself of some things just so I don't forget what it feels like. I grew up in a rural community where there were only about 3 families in our immediate vicinity who had electricity and running water. This fact was brought home to me when I went to stay overnight at a friends house once. Her family did not have these amenities that I had always taken for granted. We even had to go outside to use the facilities. I immediately became very grateful for what I did have. The same was true with many of my other childhood friends. I went to my aunt with my concerns and she told me that this was the only way it had ever been for these friends and their families, so they could not actually miss having the conveniences we had. I was never happier though, than when a project was instituted to bring electricity and running water into the homes of everyone in our community.

?eah, that happens to me sometimes with things i dont use. i givve them away then want it back so i end up buying another

Where I live we have dry heat during the summer. Last summer we had two weeks of one hundred and fifteen degrees everyday. During the summer we get a lot of power outages from the heat and the electric companies here do rolling blackouts where they shut of power in certain areas for hours in order to conserve power. I was to young to remember but there was a summer when I was younger that the power was out all night. We dont use an air conditioner anyways so we had no way to cool down. It sucked.

Well, I have lived without electricity and running water a lot when I was growing up we always lived in houses that had wells we had to draw water. No electric half the time so I also had to scrub clothes out by hand.. Lucky for me things changed alot once I was married my hubby was spoiled by always having electric and running water. One winter about 10 years ago it go really bad and snow turned to ice on the electric lines and got heavy enough to start snapping the lines so for a week we had to do without electric I was okay with it since I grew up that way he hated he said it was to quiet not hearing like the t.v. or the hum of the refrigerator or freezer. We lost alot of food we had because it being off for a week we tried to eat it as it dethawed thank heavens we had a wood/coal burning stove at the time to cook with. But yes it was nice and made us appreciate it all the more when it came back on it was good not having to stand in front of a very hot coal/wood stove to cook. Yeah he also hated not having a coffee pot ready to go when he needed it and no hot water..lol So I am very grateful everyday for the little things.

We were without electricity for two days last year due to an ice storm. It was quite different. We had to find ways to stay warm, cook, to see after dark. It was an experience. The kids were totally lost!!

Tell me about it. This past weekend our water line to our water pump broke and therefor had to turn off the water to the house for several days. You don't realize until it is gone what it entails, but it was no showers, no doing the dishes, no washing your hands, no doing laundry, by the time it was fixed and we could turn on the water again I was so grateful just to be able to wash my hands again!!

Hey pw, when I was in my teens my parents bought a place out in the country I mean in the thick sticks anywho..there was no running water,electricity,phone nothing for the first few months we stayed there-we had to go get our water at an artesian well & fill up 50 gallon drums & the restroom well we went where the bears go |:X We live down south so you can imagine how hot it was no ac whew I felt like a pilgrim even cooking everything outside on the grill luckily it had a side burner so you could fry stuff. +'s |:)

Wow nothing like waking up to no power.I always hate that when the power goes out here. Especially in a thunderstorm, cause you have no idea when they are going to restore power.

Hi Pye, when I was for the last time to b=visit my mum the elctricity there failed mostly every day and i was getting mad about it as I am not used to, and you are so right about how easy it is to take things for granted and see how much we miss them when they are not available to us on a daily bases. Same is for when you have someone , like a friend but you do not see what he/she means to you until the day that they are gone. This makes you ponder things quite differently, no? TheFortunes