Sorry I haven't been around much. The storms here having been knocking out my internet connections most of the weekend. I did a whole bunch of research and everything disappeared even though I saved it. Spent most of last night just trying to reconfigure my printer which also lost its setting and then the internet went down again until about 3 am this morning.

So if you don't see me around today, it's nothing major..just no internet!

I am surprised I didnt lose mine. The tiniest bit of weather usually has us losing power. We got 6 inches of snow on Fri..snow showers on and off on sat..and probably another 4-6 inches of snow, yesterday.

We are expecting snow on xmas eve. I am going to my kids..a half hour north of me..and if I see any flakes coming down..I am staying over that night..lol I hate to be in the car on dark roads in the ice or snow.

It was 17 degrees in NC this AM and my heat pump went on the fritz. The HVAC guy just left and it looks as if it will be tomorrow before he can return to complete this phase of the repair. It seems something needs to be fixed first before the real problem can be fixed I hate these gray areas; it generally amounts to a bigger repair bill in the end. At least it is supposed to be warmer tomorrow.

A wild guess here....and you dont have a fireplace.

What saves us, is we have a franklin stove in the livingroom. It is not the air tight type, but it burns logs and gets hot..lol We lost power here a couple of weeks ago. It was 18 degrees out. This warms up the living room and I would say part of the kitchen. We close the other doors. My sofa is a sleeper, so if we had to..we could sleep out there. Thing is..I am afraid to sleep with a fire going, so I stayed up until 2am when it came back on.

The area I live in uses septics and wells for water. When you lose power..you lose your toilet and your water. This is because the well pump is electric.

About 11 years ago, the first of april, we had an ice storm. Because this area is woodsey, they shut our power for 4 days, so they could remove the branches from the power lines, plus put up those that fell. I had 10 people staying in my small house..which Thank God for this woodstove, kept us all warm. My kitchen stove is propane..so I could cook and make coffee. My stand up freezer had needed to be defrosted..so happened to be full of snow on its own. I was able to put fridge items on the door..and the town was giving hot ice (is that what you call that stuff?), so I lost no food. It was a good thing I had a pool, because this is the water we brought in to flush the toilets. My kids filled jugs of water daily, for drinking and washing, from the houses of friends who happened to have power.

Watta nightmare this was..after a day or two..lol

I have gas logs (propane tank) as an alternate or emergency source of heat; however, I too have my own well and septic tank so power outages are a real pain. If the weather is truly threatening, I draw a tub full of water so I can flush the toilets. I've given some thought to a small generator but I haven't looked into it very seriously yet. I can most of the vegetables from out garden although I do freeze several gallons of blueberries each year. There are definitely trade-offs to country living!

I have been trying to talk my husband into getting a generator for years. If we get a strong wind..out goes the power. If a car hits a pole on the main road...out. Snow/thunderstorms...out.

When my son got married, 10 years ago..the first thing he did was bought a generator. He has lights, tv, he can go to the bathroom and he can shower. A couple of times, he had his sister and fam and his wifes bro and fam, showering there. They had to get more gas, out of their cars..lol..but, they could do the things everyone else cant.

This generator really came in handy a few times. My daughter had her baby's christening, 2 years ago..in a hurricane. As soon as we came home from the church, the wind picked up and the power went out. She had over 60 people coming and most were on their way before the wind picked up. My son went home, got the generator..which gave us the bathroom use, electric for coffee..and enough light in the basement so the kids could still play down there. Without that generator we would have been sunk..lol

I just dumped all of my saved water..lol I was refilling containers and pots since friday. The sun is out now..so I think I am safe.

Well I live in the older area of Toronto and up until about 8 or 10 years ago we lost power every Sunday in the winter because of some problem or another. They finally replaced all the transformers on the main road so its not too bad but I lived two years (with a six year gap in between) with no furnace..no heat until February because my furnace died. The last time, two years ago, it was a new furnace!

How did you keep warm?

I can't tell you that...

Actually..it was a very mild winter thankfully and so with the help of two space heaters, extra clothes, trip to my parents house and my oven (which now is broken) we managed nicely and our bills were manageable. There is no way we could have survived like that if we had had winters like we have had this year and last year.

The first few years were the hardest. The kids were so small but we had a sofa bed and we would all sleep there until we had power and water. We bought so many blankets back then and of course since I couldn't do much I made many of them. As much as it was hard, it was also nice. Hubby and I would read most of the day and go to bed early. Since the kids were young they slept a lot.

Ohhh..human heat and space heaters..lol