Let's just start with, I'm freaking exhausted... If I start to ramble- well- you'll just have to forgive me (or deal) as well as for any typos. I'm so tired, I had to stop and get gas to take Sparrow to school, pumped the gas, got in the Jeep, and started to drive home- totally forgetting to that she had yet to arrive at the school!
It all started with a loud BOOM! I kinda thought it was the Transformer blowing AGAIN! (The one in the cow field across the road blows all the freaking time. All. The. Freaking. Time. Like for a while we lost power once a week. We're up to once every two weeks or so.) So I push the speed dial for the Emergency Electric Outage line (yes that's how bad it is, I have them on speed dial) and get snarky with a poor woman named LaDonna. (To whom I am exponentially sorry.) My kids are pissed because they really wanted to watch Avalon High, which we were DVR'ing and were just getting to the main action. So we call. I got off the phone and hear the neighbors yelling back and forth across the road. Well we can't tell from inside if it's a "Hey what's going on?" or a "I need help" type of thing so FarmerGeek goes running out there. It's our next door neighbors yelling to the guy across the street to see if it was just her house or all the houses.
Then the sirens started.
And they kept coming.
And coming.
And coming.
Now we don't keep it a secret that we adopted from foster care and kids who have been in foster care have some issues. Our kids have some nice issues about sirens, police officers, flashing lights, and- you guessed it- being without power. So what's a mom to do? Well I know my kids, sitting inside helpless ain't gonna help no way no how. So my kids throw their robes on and slippers and start walking down the road. (With us and the neighbors.)
We did realize by now that there were definitely enough First Responders there and they probably wouldn't need our help. But you never know- last year during an ice storm the ambulance slid off the road and we were able to run back home for salt. And the one other storm where the girl drove into the cow pasture fence, we were able to make some coffee for the First Responders. Then there was the time the kid swerved to "miss" hitting a duck and crashed into a mailbox and the sheep fencing. I got to give a statement that time. Or the really scary time the guy lost consciousness and hit the electric pole in front of our house on the other side of the street. That was the time FarmerGeek actually had to call the guy's family.
I guess what I'm saying is if you come to our place- be careful. Our road is a jinx.
ANYWAYS....
We let the neighbor walk ahead in case there was anything bad for little eyes. He came back and said that some guy went up over the hill and into an electric pole knocked that one completely over into the field, and knocked the second one mostly over. I think he said the car ended up in the ravine. By now all the neighbors have checked in, hung out, etc.. We found out exactly which house belongs to the guy that works at the electric company. I believe we even found out when the next 4-H meeting is. We stood around watching the pretty lights. And then walked home. We made a fire and lit candles and oil lamps. Oh and read another chapter of "Little House in the Big Woods". The girls went to bed and a little while later the lights (and subsequently heat and water) came back on.
Which should have been the end.
Really.
But no.
Every once in a while if I'm under a bunch of stress or having trauma based issues myself, I wake up in the middle of the night feeling like there are little bugs crawling all over my legs. Weird I know, but true. Then I look and see that there aren't which leaves me feeling so itchy I can't stand it. There is only one thing to do then- I have to get up and take a shower. By then, everything's back in perspective and I feel clean again and the itching goes away. So naturally, in the middle of the night this kicks in.
I am now exhausted, crying, whining, and generally not happy. But FarmerGeek convinces me to get up and shower. No lie, I go down and sit on the pot to prepare to shower. And the power goes out again. Which means no well. Which means no shower. Which means no end in sight to my itchiness. And goodness knows I tried. I reminded myself it wasn't real. I tried to treat it like it was real with anti-itch cream. I took Benadryll. Then it did something it never did before. It spread. By 3:45AM my entire body was itching like mad. I'm trying not to scratch or cry because I don't want to wake FarmerGeek up and it's too cold to leave the bed (no heat remember?). I'm about to wake him up anyway and ask him for the directions to the generator when...
The power finally comes back on.
So at about 3:45 AM I take a shower and go back to bed. Until the alarm goes off. At 6. That's about 2 hours sleep after the itchiness and 2 hours before. I am an 8.5 hours girl. I do not do well with no sleep. It's a lot of the reason why we adopted older kids.
I'm going to take a nap.
1 comment:
Your post is making me itch!
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