This year for sure will go down in our family as having the most interesting Christmas Eve. For one thing, we still have NO snow. Like not even a speck. Evidently that is going to change sometime today, as we are under the threat of a pretty huge storm starting this afternoon and extending into tomorrow afternoon.
My bossman was very nice and let me stay home on the 23rd so that I could get ready for the family Christmas Eve. All day Wednesday I cleaned and baked, making sure I had everything done so that all that would need doing on the 24th was the actual cooking of the dinner.
Around midnight, Tyler and I were just hanging out watching tv, and I decided I would actually do a holiday mani that took some actual effort. While I was doing that, Tyler started doing her gift wrapping. All was going great, and I was in the middle of putting rhinestones on my 6th nail, when we heard a loud "pop" outside, the lights flickered, and then the entire neighborhood went black. A few minutes later we heard another pop, this crazy-ass wind kicked up and we had a downpour of what sounded like hail that lasted for probably 30 seconds.
I immediately grabbed my phone to go to the power company website to report the outage. It was 2:45 a.m. At that point their website gave an estimated time of 3:45 a.m. for the power to come back on. We saw the power company's truck go up and down the street a few times during the next half hour. My battery operated holiday lighted items were still on, of course, and I grabbed the one battery lantern I own so we weren't in complete darkness. Kev woke up when the power shut off, and he went out to the garage and came back in with a propane lantern he had picked up when he went downstate during hunting season. That thing was super bright, and I sat with that and finished the rest of my rhinestones while Tyler wrapped by the light of the smaller lantern.
I've never had the power be out for more than a couple of hours, and I had no reason to believe this time would be any different.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
When we finally wandered off to bed at 7 a.m., the lights were still out, and the website gave no indication as to when they'd return. I got out of bed right before 11 a.m. because I was freezing and got up to find still no power, which in my house also means no running water because there's no power to the pump.
The power was out in quite a few places throughout the Upper Peninsula due to high winds, but ours was the first to go. Unfortunately we were not the first to be fixed. I called my sister to let her know what was happening and to find out if we could move the festivities to her house since I obviously couldn't cook without power. We saw a truck head down our road with a new power line pole on it at about 2:30 p.m., so Kev hopped in the car to go see what was up. A ginormous tree had split in half and fallen on the power line, snapping the pole. Since they had to remove the old pole, put up a new one and then reattach everything, it was pretty obvious our power wasn't going to be back on anytime soon. We loaded up all of the food and headed to my sister's house where we were both able to take showers.
After dinner, we let my grandkids open their gifts from everyone, and by the time we got home at 7:30, power had been restored. It hadn't been on for very long because it was still only 62 degrees in the house, but at least life was back to normal, and my daughters and their hubbies were able to come over at 9 p.m. to open gifts with us before heading over to my mom's at 11 p.m. for more food and more giftage. We got home from there about 2:30 a.m. and finally got to bed around 3:00.
Christmas Day was nice and normal; dinner at mom's and present opening and then home at a normal hour. As usual, by then I was tired of all the running around and just happy to be home.
So here's my done-in-the-dark Christmas mani.
My bossman was very nice and let me stay home on the 23rd so that I could get ready for the family Christmas Eve. All day Wednesday I cleaned and baked, making sure I had everything done so that all that would need doing on the 24th was the actual cooking of the dinner.
Around midnight, Tyler and I were just hanging out watching tv, and I decided I would actually do a holiday mani that took some actual effort. While I was doing that, Tyler started doing her gift wrapping. All was going great, and I was in the middle of putting rhinestones on my 6th nail, when we heard a loud "pop" outside, the lights flickered, and then the entire neighborhood went black. A few minutes later we heard another pop, this crazy-ass wind kicked up and we had a downpour of what sounded like hail that lasted for probably 30 seconds.
I immediately grabbed my phone to go to the power company website to report the outage. It was 2:45 a.m. At that point their website gave an estimated time of 3:45 a.m. for the power to come back on. We saw the power company's truck go up and down the street a few times during the next half hour. My battery operated holiday lighted items were still on, of course, and I grabbed the one battery lantern I own so we weren't in complete darkness. Kev woke up when the power shut off, and he went out to the garage and came back in with a propane lantern he had picked up when he went downstate during hunting season. That thing was super bright, and I sat with that and finished the rest of my rhinestones while Tyler wrapped by the light of the smaller lantern.
I've never had the power be out for more than a couple of hours, and I had no reason to believe this time would be any different.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
When we finally wandered off to bed at 7 a.m., the lights were still out, and the website gave no indication as to when they'd return. I got out of bed right before 11 a.m. because I was freezing and got up to find still no power, which in my house also means no running water because there's no power to the pump.
The power was out in quite a few places throughout the Upper Peninsula due to high winds, but ours was the first to go. Unfortunately we were not the first to be fixed. I called my sister to let her know what was happening and to find out if we could move the festivities to her house since I obviously couldn't cook without power. We saw a truck head down our road with a new power line pole on it at about 2:30 p.m., so Kev hopped in the car to go see what was up. A ginormous tree had split in half and fallen on the power line, snapping the pole. Since they had to remove the old pole, put up a new one and then reattach everything, it was pretty obvious our power wasn't going to be back on anytime soon. We loaded up all of the food and headed to my sister's house where we were both able to take showers.
After dinner, we let my grandkids open their gifts from everyone, and by the time we got home at 7:30, power had been restored. It hadn't been on for very long because it was still only 62 degrees in the house, but at least life was back to normal, and my daughters and their hubbies were able to come over at 9 p.m. to open gifts with us before heading over to my mom's at 11 p.m. for more food and more giftage. We got home from there about 2:30 a.m. and finally got to bed around 3:00.
Christmas Day was nice and normal; dinner at mom's and present opening and then home at a normal hour. As usual, by then I was tired of all the running around and just happy to be home.
So here's my done-in-the-dark Christmas mani.
The green is a lovely holo I got from Anonymous Lacquer, Baby Vamp. I did the light strand with my Uber Chic Christmas 01 stamping plate and then used rhinestones for the lights.
I'm pretty amazed at how well this one lasted. I lost only one rhinestone, and that was when I was rough-housing with Seven who came to play with Zero on Saturday. I finally took it off yesterday.
I hope your holiday was merry and bright, and I wish for you all nothing but great things in the upcoming new year.
I'm pretty amazed at how well this one lasted. I lost only one rhinestone, and that was when I was rough-housing with Seven who came to play with Zero on Saturday. I finally took it off yesterday.
I hope your holiday was merry and bright, and I wish for you all nothing but great things in the upcoming new year.
BEAUTIFUL manicure! I love that!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ugh and double, triple, quadruple ugh on all the power problems!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteIt was craziness! Thankfully it wasn't 20 below outside!
DeleteWOW this look amazing!!!
ReplyDeleteAwesome!!!
Found your blog while wandering around. :) Love this mani for Christmas! Love your take on the lights stamp with the rhinestones! I am definitely doing my take on that next Christmas, and adding the rhinestones in. Following you now...check my blog if you get a chance nearlypronails.blogspot.com (also love the Holo top coat from your other post...and I NEED it as well now :)
ReplyDelete