I wanted to share with you a few tips and ideas to help you be prepared for an emergency or power outage. A couple of days ago, here in Northern Utah, we had a big  wind storm.  The wind stirred up so much dust in the air, and then it started to rain.  As you know when you mix dirt and water you get mud.  Well, we had mud falling from the sky.  As the mud fell it got inside power transformers and caused them to short and a several power poles caught on fire.

There were lots of people, including myself, that experienced a power outage that night.

Our power outage began at about 5pm, so my first thought was to make sure all the blinds and curtains were open to let light in.  Soon I realized that if the power outage lasted too long we would get cold, so I closed the blinds to try to keep the heat inside.

We gathered our candles and flashlights so we would be able to see. Candles can also help you heat small areas of your home.

We then decided to have fun!  It’s a good idea when you have kids to have things in mind that you can do without power, the batteries in their tablets can only last so long.  It can be fun to play board games and card games in a power outage.  This night we had a tennis ball fight.  It was lots of fun.

Luckily we had eaten an early dinner so the power outage didn’t cause us trouble that way.  I would have been prepared though because we have one of these emergency stoves.  It works great to cook on!  It’s also a good idea to have some canned foods and sandwich supplies on hand so you can still eat during a power outage.  If you are using canned goods, be sure to have a manual can opener.  I was talking to a college student and she wasn’t prepared, so she cooked herself a dinner of mini marshmallows, roasted on toothpicks over a candle.

After we played for a while, we got the kids all bundled up in their beds.  I took the opprotunity to relax!  Take a bath by candlelight!  It was very relaxing and I got all warm before I bundled myself up and went to bed.

I know we were lucky that our power outage only lasted about 8 hours.  Lots of times they can last much longer.  It’s a good idea to get yourself prepared with 72 hour kits and food storage.