Powerless

They said to prepare for 3 days without power.  They said to have one gallon of water, per person, per day (18 gallons for our family).  They cancelled school.  We braced ourselves for Sandy to hit Stark county.  And last night it hit.  Well, I wouldn't really say "hit".  "Bumped into" maybe?  We never lost power, thank God I didn't do the water thing (because THAT'S what you need in a flood--MORE water!) and now I have 4 kids at home, watching TV and fighting for a turn on the internet (I get first dibs!) and devouring Halloween candy every time I turn my back!  I know that no one really could predict how Sandy would hit Ohio.  It was hard to tell how it was going to make landfall, then how it would slow and move once it got to land.  Turns out it died down way faster than they thought before it hit my house.  Kind of like I thought it would, but then last night I got scared.  3 days without power? 
Ike took our a HUGE oak in our backyard in 2008 and along with it part of our fence and two other trees...and our power and phone lines.  We were without power for a week (except for our borrowed generator--Thanks Dad!) and that was in early September, when it was cool and breezy.  Not now when it's cold and rainy.  So bracing myself for the worst, (Ike) I started planning last night around 10:30pm for a day without power.  And then I realized, for all my greenness, I'm still REALLY reliant on electricity.  In fact, in the case of my cloth diapers, which I realized late last night needed to be washed today in order to have enough for tomorrow, I'm more depended on electricity than those that use disposable diapers.  I looked at my to-do list, "Vacuum stairs, vacuum downstairs, laundry, blog, email Ellie's class about the Harvest Party" all these things need power.  Plus, I realized, I was going to have 4 kids at home.  No TV, no Wii, no iPods, iPads (wireless anyway) and biggest of all, no playing downstairs because without lights, it's scary dark.  I tried to get as much done last night as I could (mostly laundry and charging cell phone, iPad, running the dishwasher) then prepared for a day of limited activities, which would doubtlessly include lots of fighting and crying-my favorite part of having all 4 kids at home.  But, as I said, it never came to be.

In light of my realization about my electricity consumption, I decided to think about how I can change my ways.  I've said millions of times before that I'm going to get my kids to unplug a little more.  I always do it, but somehow we always manage to backslide over time.  They DID watch a little TV today, and Ellie played her new DS game Vince picked out for her yesterday at the library, but for the most part they've been playing powerless things...doing their "Angry Birds Show" running around, playing house (Ellie does that one alone while the boys play "guys").  They do have light downstairs, which they wouldn't have had if we'd lost power, but for the most part, they're doing pretty well unplugging.  What about me?  I WISH I could decrease the amount of laundry that I do, but I'm washing for 6 people, and 4 of them are very messy.  Olivia has a cold and is all phlegmy, which is causing her to gag and puke so that's even MORE laundry.  Since I'm an underbuyer, we don't have tons of clothes so I need to keep up with the laundry so we don't have to go naked.  Caden only has 3 pairs of pants, one to wear, one to wash and a buffer--see the pains of an underbuyer?!?! I guess what I'm saying is that I can't decrease the amount of laundry I do.  Is there a way I could use less energy in my daily life?  I'm going to have to think on this for awhile, as I go about my day.