The life of a work-at-home mom is never boring, and today is no exception. Last night, hurricane Irene knocked out our electricity around 5PM and there’s no telling when it will come back on. Fortunately, that is all that happened at my house. Unfortunately, many people with homes and businesses near the rivers of Vermont did not fare so well and I hope that they are able to recover from their losses.
Not having electricity sure takes some things off of the to-do list, like dishes and laundry. Those things will pile up and be waiting for me when the power comes back on. There are also other things on the to-do list that are not normally on there, like using the restroom outdoors and putting towels on the floor to absorb water from the fridge. There will also at some point be a major refrigerator cleanout because I do not think that the things that are in there are safe to eat any more even if the power comes back on right now.
What’s a home-based professional mom to do when the power goes out? Today, I took my son for a long walk into town. I got some good exercise because it was an hour walk each way, and he had a great time playing at his favorite park even though it was all but washed into the river last night. The play equipment was still standing firm but a great deal of the sand underneath it had been washed away, leaving very soft sand and mud in its place. Dylan thought all of this was very fascinating and delighted in getting up close and personal with the sand and mud. Of course, I could not exactly plunk him in the tub when we got home so a healthy handful of baby wipes served as this afternoon’s bath.
Miraculously, I am able to get my work done today. We don’t have a generator, but my husband does have this thing called a power inverter that plugs into the cigarette lighter of the car. It lets you plug in one thing, which right now is my laptop. We tried it on the fridge but to no avail. I am so grateful that we had this thing laying around the house because this home-based professional mom has work to do, electricity or no electricity. I think that we’ll be getting a generator before winter comes, but at least for now I can still work at home even if that means eating dry cereal, peanut butter sandwiches, bottled water, and crackers for a while.