One for the Books Holiday Recap: Part 2

(If you missed part one, click here and catch up.)  Now it was Christmas Eve morning.   Around 6am, the Mr went to the bathroom and it was freezing so he turned on the fireplace from the top of the stairs and kept an ear out.  If heat rises then the lower two levels were going to be brutal.  

We heard plenty of cars whizzing by on the main road so we thought the roads must not be bad.  He placed an order at the donut shop in the next town I'd been following on IG who had power and we weren't in the mood for McD's again.  We did take a moment to enjoy the Christmas snow we didn't think we were going to get.

We heard a commotion and the snowplow dude showed up at 7am so the Mr got the car warming up in case he could move the car so he could plow more.  HA!  1)  That car was frozen shut from the ice and 2) Mr Man had places to be, he wasn't going to wait for us.  I knew that and just started shoveling the light snow on the ice.  There was no easing into the day; we were thrown into it.  He went to get the donuts for later while I stayed with the fire in the 55 degree house.  (It was 60 upstairs and 49 in the living area where the tree was.)   It occurred to us we needed to start moving food since according to both of our under high stress recollections you had 24 hours for fridge food on a power outage and 48 hours for freezer as long as you didn't open them.   For anyone who gasped at the first number, so did I once I looked it up online.  Try FOUR HOURS, not twenty four.  We were both so sure the day before and thought that was a lesson we learned in the derecho but nope and we were both so stressed (and so certain since we both said the same number with confidence) that we were too foolish not to double check when we saw the outage was lasting longer than anticipated.  

I checked the fridge and sure enough...we were f**ked.  Those two extra meals from two different places we thought we were so smart buying.  Nope.  Okay, I lied, the one we could smell- chicken parm so we knew that was a goner.  The other from our favorite breakfast place?  I could tell the Mr was super disappointed because he'd been looking forward to that for 2 years and the place had already closed for the rest of the year.  He said he was willing to risk it if I could cook the hell out of it.  

(My Biscuit French Toast Sticks...they're to die for.)

I was so sure we were going to die, I wrote it in the journal so when they found our dead bodies on check out day they would know we gambled with food and lost.  (I'm typing this so clearly we didn't die but I do not recommend that to ANYONE.)  We had to throw out a lot and I got another Shaw's order together so we could have the stuff we were planning on for Christmas Eve night because we remembered they had a fridge in the garage.  A quick check of a thermometer out there showed it was 34 degrees so it would work perfectly.  We were so defeated that this was caused by our own stupidity which made it that much worse.  At the time we just knew we couldn't risk putting stuff in the cooler out back because of bears and the temps were 48 at the time anyway.  But it did drop in enough time we could've saved it had we not had hubris brain and done a very simple check online.  We'd been keeping our phones charged with a solar charger we bought after our initial charge went down so it's not like the info wasn't available.  You can bet we'll never make that mistake again.

Once an hour passed after we didn't foam at the mouth from our warm breakfast ala nuke, I scooped some snow to deglaze the pan enough that it wouldn't start stinking and wasn't using our water we had set aside.  

We took one of the used 320 oz bottled water vats and filled it with snow to put in front of the fireplace after seeing just how terrifying 2 gallons of water looks for a poop toilet.  

That was an act of futility because not only did it take what felt like years to melt but the volume in that huge thing barely cleared enough for us to drink water for vitamins if we had to.  By the time the Shaw's order was ready, the things they said they had in stock were out and the Mr went to the next town to pick them up while I stayed with the fire.  That was part of the frustration was knowing we couldn't leave this damn fire which was giving us almost no heat but if we turned it off, the temps would plummet with it being 10 degrees outside.  It took 5 hours for the area 1 1/2' in front of it to go up 10 degrees and it never went higher than that.  If you walked anywhere other than right in front of it, it was freezing.  The utility people came across the street and on our lane two different times.  

We watched them with our faces pressed against the windows as they left and a single tear trickled down the Mr's cheek.  I pulled out a Finders Seekers mystery I got sometime last year to occupy our time.  

(You can get a similar one here without a subscription required.)

I always like to bring one of these on vacation in case we get bored or it's a rainy day and we don't feel like going out.  A component of the puzzle was left at home because of course it was but we trudged on.  An hour later as we just sat there staring in the quiet void with our butts going numb from the uncomfortable chairs but too cold to go into the basement with the tree, the Mr started getting twitchy as we approached the 30 hour mark.  "You don't realize how much PTSD you have from the derecho."  It was true.  We were completely forgotten about by friends and family the second their electricity came back on two days later and we were out for a week.  (We're talking we knew they were a mile from us at Grandma's three different times but no one ever dropped off food, ice, etc.  Then after it was over, some had the nerve to complain that we didn't check on THEM during those two days when our cell tower died!  It was when we realized it was truly just us so power outages are not just inconvenient but it triggers a LOT of feelings of abandonment for both of us.)  He went on "I don't know if I could spend Christmas like this" and as if straight to God's ears, everything came back on.  It was like our derecho imprint kicked in because it was us running around like mad people.  Flushing toilets, washing dishes, refilling water, flipping on the heat so we didn't have to sit bundled up, making food for later that night as far as what could be made ahead, etc.  We didn't trust it.  

We knew this could be temporary.  We were taking inventory of what we had.  When I realized my favorite Cabot whipped cream was also spoiled, I just lost it.  I sat at the table and sobbed uncontrollably.  It obviously wasn't about the whipped cream.  After coming off of 6 months of mental health draining reno work and being in desperate need of a break to relax or have some kind of time that didn't require us to do anything more than enjoy ourselves, it was clear that was not in the cards.  I could feel my soul being sucked out of me like the cosmos trying to get the last bits of a milkshake from the edges of a cup.  The Mr graciously replaced that and the heavy cream I needed for a recipe in the morning.  He came home to me just staring out the window as the snow fell.  It was the only peace I'd felt in months and I was going to take it in as long as life would allow at that moment.  It was my favorite day of the year and it was basically over at that point.  Yes, I know others had it worse...WAY worse, especially in Buffalo.  I am not looking for sympathy just relaying our experience and mental state at the time.  We really just needed a friggin' break after this year and 2022 said no.  We hurried up and made dinner and watched Santa Clause 2 while we had power.  Then the power went out again.  We both just sat there stunned, ready to chuck it all in.  He called the power company and they said it was a planned outage so they could bring up the grid for others.  We knew it was needed and it was short but tell that to our adrenaline.  We'd never trust the power for the rest of our time there.

Christmas Day, we were exhausted.  The Mr made coffee and those TikTok cinnamon rolls where you chuck some heavy cream on them to make them taste like Cinnabon.  They were really good and we just watched TV by the tree since we lost two days with it and I started making lunch of our traditional beef and noodles and mashed potatoes.  

We were able to enjoy it and literally just chilled all day because we couldn't muster anything else.  At 5pm it was time to open presents.

Then we watched the Christmas specials we couldn't watch while the power was out including Rudolph, Charlie Brown and the Grinch who, when paused, looked like he was jonesing for my leftovers:

We decided to try sledding/tubing again the next day hoping that maybe the Christmas snow would bring some magic and sure enough it did!

We got out of the house after that because we were getting cabin fever.  A lot was closed in Stowe because that's just how they typically do so we took a road trip to Burlington.  We stopped by the world's tallest filing cabinet

Then we finally saw Lake Champlain in person after 4 trips.  

We started taking down Christmas stuff and just when we were finally able to breathe and remove our shoulders from our ears, it was time to leave for the second half of our trip.  We're always nervous on the first day at a new place because you just don't know what you're walking into on so many levels.  This was going to be in a place that we had no clue about in East Podunk and was not the original place booked.  We booked the cabin we stayed in Woodstock in 2020 and while it had some quirks we knew it was likely going to go up and out of our price range.  Thankfully at some point last year, the Mr asked to see the listing again and when I sent it to him, he said he couldn't bring it up.  It was still listed in my trips but when I clicked the property, like him, I couldn't bring it up.  I contacted the owner.  "Oh, we sold the place three months ago, VRBO said they were going to contact people about it."  Uh...they didn't and didn't refund what we already paid initially and now we're stuck with whatever is left which wasn't much!  I don't like being forced into a place and that's how we were going to start off the new year.

Stop back Thursday to see how that portion of things went.

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