"little house on the hill"

well, we're experiencing life like on "little house on the prairie" these days as we live without power (and water, which apparently requires electricity to pump up the hill). our power went out sunday evening (just as friends were driving up the hill to watch the steeler game, our street went black - along with most of our town) and we're still without. it was kind of fun the first night as we spent time hanging out in the living room with candles lit and no tv, videos, computers, etc. then, the next morning, we didn't go to work and school was cancelled so everyone slept in and enjoyed some "down time" (except ed who continued working on tiling the shower... no rest for the weary!!). by monday night, it was annoying. now, (wednesday) it's just putting me over the edge. i've already done this!! and i hate camping!!
we're told that we should have power back up and running by 11 pm friday. in the meantime, i have to figure out how to feed my family three meals a day (eating out - even for breakfast - is pretty expensive and packing lunches is difficult without a fridge!!), get showers (thankfully, our friends have graciously invited us to shower at their homes), stretch our clean clothes to last until the weekend and keep things sane... yep, this is going to be a fun week.
once we get the power on, we'll clean out the fridge and toss everything. then i can restock. in the meantime, i need to go and buy bottled water for the dogs. i love the girls, but i never thought i'd be buying bottled water for them! but, with the trickle of water that we get, they get really thirsty. and matches. we're about out of those too. the boys love lighting the matches and thankfully, we have lots of candles... and our house now has a very unique scent (from the mix of candles, not our body odor!!). for those who would worry, we do not let the boys take candles upstairs to their rooms. they get the battery-operated camping lantern!
anyway, that's our life these days. work & school give us a little sanity. and computer access so that i can keep track of emails, our banking, etc.