Power Outage!!!

Well. It happened. It was bound to happen at least once in my life right? At least it happened in the summer and not the -60 degree winter. Right?

We had a hot day. One. Storms fired up in North Dakota and blasted over through Minnesota overnight. I saw the radar, knew it was coming, but was not really prepared for how it ended up!

Just after 1 am, loudness woke me up. The hubby got up and wondered if our oldest had his noise cancelling headphones, and went to check. He wasn't awake yet, but he did. All I could hear was wind and big raindrops blasting. The lightning was near constant, but the thunder wasn't overly loud. I checked the radars and alerts on my phone and there was, for a change, a severe thunderstorm warning coming right at us. This never happens, and a part of me was very excited! But, since it was 1 am, I was too tired, and there isn't really much to see at 1 am in the dark. 

About 2 minutes after the storm arrived, it all went dark. And that was it. Power outage!

It happens now and then with a real good storm, and it usually resolves shortly. Since it was the middle of the night, I figured it wouldn't be resolved until morning anyway. When the lights went out, the oldest did freak out. So he had to come in my room. Hubby got the LED lanterns and we all went back to bed. 

In the morning, still no power. We got up and did the best we could to just quick get our milk and eat breakfast and move on with the day, keeping the fridge and freezer shut. The power could come back on at any time, you know. We just managed. 

As the day went on, I was watching facebook and whatnot on my phone, it became clear that power would likely NOT be turning on soon. The neighbor informed me of a tree on the power line (it goes down their driveway and then comes down to our house), and knowing the order of priorities we would be last on the list because its an individual line. STILL, no one expected four days later would be when we finally got our power back!

By evening on day one we realized that we weren't getting our power back, and food needed to be moved. Luckily, it was still mostly frozen but to make the process easier we only moved the important most sensitive foods (meats, cheese, dairy etc). I figured that it couldn't be too much longer, and if we just locked up the freezer, the bagged veggies would be fine. Day one is the hottest day of the year (so far), and muggy.

Day two, still no power in sight and no repair team even assigned to our area. Numbers between our power company and the one that is mainly in the major cities/towns was up around 80,000 people without power. News stations are doing an awful lot of reporting over facebook live, which is cool! What an invention! One station was knocked completely out, their satellites were stood up instead of pointing in the proper directions, and something up the hill from them (in Duluth) was also knocked out of power. 

We did our best. We got dry ice once, and bagged ice. I wish I had gotten a ton more dry ice because by day 2, the dry ice everywhere was sold out. Day three the neighbor said Duluth was sold out as well. It's a dry ice shortage! (BTW: if you want to keep things cold and frozen, dry ice is the way to go). 

We hung out mostly at my in laws. They never lost power, and had it the whole time. So we showered there, ate there, just kinda hung out. 

We got our power back yesterday afternoon. 

Being an aspie and having a power outage is pretty stressful. Our house felt unwelcoming and I was scared to do anything for fear I would forget that I needed power to do it and would be stuck not doing it. AND it was blasted hot in our house, so many windows that its like a greenhouse. Doing the "open all night, shut before it gets hot" trick doesn't work here because of the windows, so it was just easier to leave the windows open. The cats survived. Hubby borrowed a generator on day 4, and that was kinda nice to get the freezer going.

Now I'm having to make the decision of whether or not to throw out the veggies that thawed. Even tho we had dry ice, and regular ice, and they went into the cooler on day 3 instead of the freezer... I'm unsure. I guess they are probably not any good, or fall under the rule of "when in doubt, throw it out"... But we aren't necessarily doing well right now so the thought of throwing out vegetables really gets to me. Not to mention the fresh picked rhubarb!! I should have thought faster on that one and cooked something with it right away when the power went out.

Which brings me to my point: Survival. My brain was only on survival. It wasn't on being creative, it wasn't on thinking of what I could do to cook things that were thawing. It was on survival and maybe even avoidance of the problem of not having power. It took me three days to start thinking creatively about things and by then I felt unsure it would be safe anymore.

So now I will have to throw things out. I'm a little frustrated about it I guess, but I'd rather no one puked around here. 

I get things started up, had to pay some bills online, and what else? The internet is also out. Waiting currently for the repair guy to show up. I sure hope it's a quick easy fix. :P Using my cell to do internet today. 

Having an aspie KID while all this is going on? He seemed to do okay, but refused to sleep alone in his room without power. Again, it made the house seem unfriendly and unwelcoming. Nights were so miserably sweaty I couldn't believe it, and I hate nothing more than feeling sticky, sweaty and yucky hot. Sitting and doing the bedtime stuff was sweating so hard I couldn't believe it. But it was interesting.

Hubby said it was like camping in your own house.
Except camping is fun, you get to go somewhere else, NOT go to work, and you get to sightsee. That's kinda the point of camping. Of course, none of that was going on, it was life as usual, just without power at home. 

Aspie's dont like change. Even little changes. I did okay, until someone else started losing their minds over it and then I had very little patience. Yes, we all want the power back on. I'm sure the power company employees live in the area too and want their own power back on as much as anyone else, but there's a process they go through, and it takes time when you have thousands of miles of line and thousands of customers out, and thousands of trees on the lines. But we still don't like change. I think I am surprised by how I was able to bear it anyway. But, we still had someplace to go that had power. If we hadn't, I'm not sure how I would have felt. Pretty helpless as things rotted away, I'm sure.

It was a mess. I have only seen the tip of it because I haven't really been anywhere. We lost a few trees, but not the ugly crooked one or the dead one that have bothered me since we had some logged a while back LOL. Of course. But nothing hit any of our buildings and I don't think anything hurt the neighbors either. So we were lucky. We could be dealing with a hole in the roof and trying to work with insurance to fix it and stuff. Who knows. 

It's just not the same without power.

Things you take for granted?
Cold refrigerator/freezer

Running water/flushing toilets

Night Lights

Electricity in general.

It's been surreal. 

If You Want To Make God Laugh.... A Word on Change and Shock in ASD

Tell Him your plans.

That's right. Make plans, be confident and sure of them, and wait.

Change is not something that ASDs have an easy time with. In fact, the more we can plan ahead, and prepare for things, the better. No surprise parties (though no one has ever thrown me one, I'm fairly certain I wouldn't like it because I would never be prepared for that much social activity).

Anyway, be gentle with your ASD when it comes to change. It doesn't matter if the change is the food you're serving for lunch (been there with my son!), or a change in plans (like going to go somewhere and then not having the money - again, been there!) Give them some time.

Don't be quick to congratulate for something when they are still trying to recover from the shock of change. ASDs can be surprisingly stubborn, irrational, even mean and panicky when they're still recovering from a shock. Please be gentle on your loved one or friend. Let them pour out their feelings of overwhelm and fear and pain and frustration and guilt.

I know through experience that all this happens. Sometimes it lasts 5 minutes. Sometimes it lasts for days. Point is that you have to give them space if they want, or the ear they need to just listen, or the shoulder they need to just cry on. Give them some time.

Do not mistake their smiling for happiness, sometimes ASD means poor emotional facial expressions. (Great, it's already hard for us to tell when you're kidding, but now I'm telling you its hard to tell when we are too?)
 I can't tell you the number of times something happened and I ended up stuck smiling, leaving the person thinking I'm joking or not serious. It's hard to defend yourself when you're smiling like its all a big joke, even though you know it's not, and don't even feel that it is, but your face deceives you.

Above all, follow their cue. Don't try to tell them that they are being ridiculous. Don't try to tell them that they don't make sense. Don't brush off their feelings, because they are real, and deep! Just bear with them, it is likely it will pass, but the way you made them feel won't.

Last Minute

I know I have never been the kind of person who deals well with changes at the last minute. I think in my life I have done rather well, I can handle major changes in general pretty well. It's the ones that come at the last second that drive me up the wall. Mostly because I plan ahead in my mind what a day (or whatever) is going to be like. Then some last minute change comes along and pulls the rug out from under me and I'm left feeling rather frustrated or very sad. 

This seems to be pretty common with Aspergers. We don't like unexpected change. Maybe this is why so many of us desire and obsess over gathering information and knowledge about something. We want to be as prepared as we can be, and know as much about something as we can, so that not much can take us by surprise. 

For example, when I was first pregnant, I got my hands on a lot of very informative material! Though I refused to read the "What To Expect..." series, I was given books through my insurance company healthy start program, and my doctor's office. One of the books that meant a lot to me was "The Birth Book" by Sears. This book is still the best book on birth I have ever read. No book I have run across since has been as honest and informative as that book. Of course, if you know the Sears', you know they have written quite a few books on parenting and related topics. Both Martha and William Sears have written books as well as their son Robert, who wrote "The Vaccine Book". So of course I got my hands on as many of those as possible as well, and read them too.

Not much has changed with this pregnancy! I still rely on the same resources that I loved so much the first time around. I am going to read "The Birth Book" again, because I know it gave me so much motivation and information the first time, I want that same confidence the second time! It has been more than 6 years after all! I like to be reminded why I made the choices I made to avoid drugs and other interventions, and I am more concerned with my birth plan being respected this time. In addition to my husband I am having a friend come as well, to help deal with those kinds of situations I regret having, such as the "pushy nurse" who would not stop asking me if I wanted something (even though I repeatedly said no, she just kept asking!). She wants to go into midwifery, so she will be perfect for what I need! 

We got a couple of DVDs from Netflix called "Laugh and Learn About Childbirth" as well. This way we don't have to retake the classes at the hospital, which are more geared toward first time parents. It was pretty awesome! Even the parts that we know we don't want to have to worry about, such as the drugs and c-section parts of the movie, I wanted to watch anyway because I just do not want to have to be surprised! 

See what I mean? The power comes from the knowledge. I don't think that ONLY people with Aspergers should have knowledge, and I don't think that ONLY people with Aspergers gain a lot of power from knowledge. I think that EVERYONE should have the right information for whatever in life so they are prepared. Many people will tell you each birth experience is different, which is true, but the body's process is exactly the same. You will go through the same phases, you will go through the same process. Information helps you to know what is happening, that all this pain has a purpose and reason and that blocking the pain has certain risks. Especially knowing about the risks certain choices will cause is critical to experiences we face! You have to know what you are risking by the choices you make! Whether its birth, or whether to drive or fly to your destination, there are risks and costs, and one has to have the knowledge to be able to accurately and sensibly make the right choices. Making the choice based on little to no information, or based on what choices someone else makes is a rather foolish decision.

Anyway, so today I am dealing with one of these last minute situations, and though it has NOTHING to do with pregnancy (at least not physically), I am still constantly surprised at how fast the tears can fall from my eyes when I am faced with a disappointing change or last minute plan. It is frustrating, and yet unpredictable. There is no way I could have planned for that, unless I plan for it every day and just get surprised on the days that it doesn't happen.

Change & My Brain

Again, I have to apologize, I'm stealing a post from someone else.

Often times in this journey, I have not known what to write, and then I run across something that fits me perfectly, and I didn't even know it did.

This was a very detailed description of processing change. This is likely why people with Aspergers/Autism are upset by changes. To me, even small changes are big changes, so keep that in mind. Enjoy this referral today! Thanks to Inner Aspie for a great post!

http://inneraspie.blogspot.com/2012/10/change-how-my-brain-processes-it.html