And the lights went out in California.... AGAIN!

One of the joys of living at the end of a small peninsula is that there is one tree-lined feed for SMECO's power lines. Our power outages here in Kingston Creek are memorable. The 1994 Valentine's Ice Storm was eight days. Hurricane Isabelle was seven days in 2003. The tornado (which clipped the trees between our house and the neighbor's) was a three day outage in 2004. Tropical Storm Ernesto was five days in 2006. The wind storm of last week was an all-nighter, and last night's lightening outburst (the worst I remember in five years) was nearly an all-nighter.

We've learned to appreciate three things through all of this:

1. You can cook ANYTHING on a grill (pizza and fries are a family favorite)!
2. The neighbor's pool is INVALUABLE to flush the toilet, but buckets of water get heavy after the first 100 yards!
3. These niftly Brinkman GO-LED lights deserve an award for cheap, safe, effective emergency lighting.

I trekked back to Target last night to buy two more packs. $4.99 at Target for four of these little guys. Disposable, cheap, and good enough to keep you from stubbing your toes on the toys the boys left out in the hallway (and to read a book in bed by).