So... Hurricane Sandy has come and gone now, and we came out ok, although not completely unaffected. We didn't have to deal with any fallen trees on our property - which, I seriously feel blessed about, as we have SIX rather large trees on our property alone, not counting all of our neighbors yards. We didn't deal with any flooding, and I feel blessed that we didn't lose any loved ones or sustain any real damage... All we endured was 7 nights & 6 days without power, hot water & warmth!!

It was a little rough, because we had some low's in the 30's - but thank God, we finally got power early Monday morning (12:41am). I was so excited, I couldn't even fall back to sleep. Then, we had a 2.0 earthquake 8 miles from here, that I felt at 1:19am - I swear, I thought I was crazy to feel that - the whole wall just jolted! We were all upstairs because we had been lighting fires & since heat rises we were all a lot more comfortable upstairs. We have a fire alarm system that is set up through the house, so when we got power, it went off, and we heard "Fire! Fire! Get out! Fire! Fire! Get out!" over this loud speaker throughout the house & of course, we freaked out because we had immediately assumed that the fireplace had malfunctioned & we had a full-blown fire! Anyway, it was crazy... But after 20 seconds we realized we were not in danger & that we had just gotten our power back on.... I could have cried, I was so happy! :)

We survived the power being out, by burning a lot of candles, using flashlights & lighting a fire every night. As far as cooking & bathing - we used our propane-fueling BBQ to heat up food & boiled pots of water for baths - it was tough & my hands are proof that it wasn't easy (so many burns!!). Garrick said he could get used to that life-style & considered us to being similar to the Amish people, minus a farm to do work on! I don't know about that, it was harder than I thought it'd be.

Things got a bit panicky here in NJ, I always look at any type of person who lives in harsh climates, like the North Easterners, North Europeans, Canadians, Russians, etc. They endure a lot of rough weather so they are strong & resilient... But I could see their despair, it was rough on everyone. Gas was scarce, people were getting upset - fighting over supplies, they were cold & trapped - it's crazy how just a bit of stress can cause so much chaos. People waiting in gas lines, that were close to a mile long. Some people told me they waited 4 to 6 hours to fill up their tank, or a canister for the generators at home.

Unfortunately, when you lose power, you also lose all your perishable goods. It was a bit depressing to throw away so much perfectly good food. Cheeses, yogurt, dairy, meat, condiments, ice cream, my pumped breast milk & also... I pre-make a lot of meals, to freeze for nights we need a quick dinner & those all had to go to. Four huge trash bags of food - gone! :(

I think I came up with a great idea, I'm going to buy Garrick an oil-fueled generator for Christmas, pretty genius... huh? Guys like that kind of stuff + it'll benefit all of us! :) We use an oil tank to heat our house & our water, but.... this seems crazy, you need electricity to use it!! So, that's why we were out of everything. If we had had a generator, then it could have supplied just enough energy to keep the refrigerator going, plus use our electric stove here and there + supply enough electricity to power our oil tank. We could get by with using less lights & supplementing with candles & flashlights, I've totally thought this one out! :)

Here's what a typical night & dinner looked like for us....

So romantic... I know! Hahaha! Just kidding....

Here are just a few pictures we took the day after Hurricane Sandy - I know the damage was far worse on the coast, this is just our town/immediate area. The fallen trees were so numerous, it seemed as though every 6 or 7 houses had at least one fallen tree. Good thing the houses up here have brick, stone & concrete foundations... because a lot of houses had trees laying right on top of them.