Let the reign of holy Electric Light finally come…

Sweet God my power is back on. So cold and dark for so long....
The boys and I were stationed at the home base during the power loss from the ice storm for five days. We had it better than many. I've heard stories of people dying from carbon monoxide poisoning, from fire started by candles, from risking the Russian Roulette that is the Tulsa four way and losing. We were cold, put out and bored, but we made it through.
I tried to make it a game for them called Pioneer days. The food was kept in our garage and as it hovered around freezing everyday nothing was spoiled. It was novel to have food outside of the fridge for them. We stocked up on what candles (our house smelled like a florist shop!) and batteries that were available to purchase, and bought more minutes for the cell phone that was recharged at Mike's workplace (why doesn't the car charger work?). And everyone got his own flashlight, two lucky finds from the bottom of the Big Lots barrel. We have a gas fireplace in the living room that kept the house moderately warm, and a gas stove top and water heater so we were able to cook and bathe.
It was most tedious at night. What sunlight we had died around five o'clock leaving us in the relative darkness, save candles and flashlights, for hours. I brought out the Geotracks box from the garage which I am loath to do because there are hundreds of little pieces to this noisy little train set, but it kept the boys occupied which saved some of my thinning patience. During the day, once the streets were clear of the fallen tree limbs, we went to the mall, the aquarium, any where that was lit and warm; everywhere we went we met others in our situation. Literally everyone was affected.
Our power came back on during a trip to the laundromat. We ran around the house turning things on as if it was a miracle. Now there is snow on the ground, and we are barred inside again, but we have television, and computers, the coffee machine, microwave, and lights, lights, lights! Bless the power service people from Oklahoma and beyond who have been working 24 hours a day to restore us to electricity, and the tree people for helping us to clear the colossal mountains of branches and debris from our property.