Electricity

Throughout the summer we've been pretty lucky with our electricity situation. Pretty consistently we have electricity to cook in our oven, use the internet and if at night, shower with a light on.

In late Spring it rained quite a bit and one day we had a flooding type situation. That day, the power went out. Since then, we haven't had a whole lot of rain and we've had our "power." Summer has been hot and dry and it seems like our seasons change at the beginning of new months. For example, when we arrived last September, it was really hot. Then on October 1st, the winds came off the Caspian sea and the weather changed. It's totally coincidental, but I've noticed this pattern for most months. So after a mild June, came a hot July and since the beginning of August, it's been cool and rainy.

For the last two days, it has been almost sweater weather and it kept spitting rain and then transitioning to the harder rain you hear hitting the tin roof. Needless to say, the electricity went out. A positive with the cooler weather, our concrete brick house has begun to cool down. It took about 2 days to normalize, so maybe once it begins to heat back up again, it will take a while to get back to oven status.

Here's the not so serious impact of nearly 20 hours of not having electricity:

• Cooked eggplant on the gas stove instead of baking it
• Couldn't start or make the apple pie. Will still have to wait a few more hours to get the butter hard again for the crust. Not so bad, keeps the kitchen cleaner longer.
• Defrosted the frozen freezer (plus!)
• No access to the outside world via computer. Went to bed earlier.
• Weekends are precious times to Skype and we lost an American day
• Headlamp/flashlight broke into multiple pieces when dropped from the only shelf in the shower. Surprisingly resilient little guy and once put back together, it still works!
• Continued to improve my candle contraption - glass bottle and the top of a coke bottle
• Joey was not able to perform his nightly concert to the neighbor kids due to cold/rain
• We were able to daydream/strategize about our trip back to America in less than 2 months!
• I was able to study some Azeri this morning
• Cleaned out the fridge
• Prepped our spaghetti sauce canning stuff

Ultimately, it is not so bad loosing power. It forces you to really take a look at what is within your control and make due. It's nice to have lots of comforts around us but when they're not there, we live on!

This electric symbol is on the front of most circuit breakers.