Everyone "chillin' "(literally) in front of the fire. L and El are the 2 lumps under the big blanket. They were coloring.

What kept us warm

To most new adoptive parents, the title of this post-"What's that Smell?"- would signal a very distinct thought. I have read several of those type of posts. However, this is not our case.

Thursday morning, I awoke very abruptly and sprung out of bed to the smell of smoke. I yelled to my dh, "What's that smell? Where is it coming from?" I frantically went running out our door and down the hall looking in the kids' bedrooms on the way. Everyone else was still asleep. I noticed it lessened away from our room. I ran back to our room and by then D was up smelling too. Long story short, our heater was busted.

The repairman came at about 8:30 that morning and informed us that the motor on our heater had burned up and we needed a new motor and squirrel cage. He said that they'd try to make it back before I went to work that evening. About 3 p.m. I began wondering where they were, so I called. Here is what they said, "Oh, we forgot to call. We can't find your part anywhere. It is being overnighted here. We'll be there tomorrow morning to fix your heater." Okay, no heat for the night.

Really, this wasn't a big deal on Thursday. Temps were above average by almost 20 degrees. The house remained in the low 60s for most of the day. It was a tad chilly, but not bad at all. That night, we all bundled, added extra blankets, allowed the kids a big "sleepover" with each other for fun, and crashed for the night. However, it was not the night that I dreaded, but the next morning. You see, a huge arctic front was moving down from Alaska and we were going to be getting what the news reporters have been calling "ICE STORM 2007". This phrase is, of course, said with fear and dread booming from their voices.

By morning, the temps were into the low 20s and dropping, with wind chills into the teens. My dh headed out for his nice warm office and I readied to make a warm breakfast and hopefully start a fire in the fireplace. About half an hour later, I received a call from D saying he hadn't made it far and it was getting worse. He was coming home. I left the fire-making to him and I started hot chocolate and waffles.

We spent all morning in the living room around the fire, cuddled in blankets. We watched some TV and then, against the wishes of my kids (I was a diligent teacher), we did some school. About 11 a.m., with the temp inside the house dropping steadily, I was again wondering where the repairman was. I called. They said UPS had not delivered the part by the 10 a.m. deadline, but they would check into it. They called back shortly and said that it was at the UPS facility and one of their workers was near there. They'd pick it up and be out to fix it in an hour.

We did more school, D made his "Dad's Famous Soup" (chicken and veggies-yum!), and we waited. About 2 p.m., the repairman came. I will not replay this, but here's the recap: old house owners had installed non-factory motor and thus cut all the wiring wrong, needs wiring, will be here Monday, try to rig some heat, oops! motor we ordered rotates wrong way, need different motor, found one, installs different motor (does not look new), heat!!!! That last word is all we cared about seeing as how our ground was a sheet of white ice at this point and they are expecting possibly another inch of ice plus some snow before Sunday evening. Our temps that are normally in the 40s this time of year will be in the single digit highs with wind chills in the negative teens.

I don't care how they got the heat going as long as we have it!!! Now we're hunkered in for the weekend and maybe longer to wait out "ICE STORM 2007". They are counting on widespread power outages. Hopefully we don't join those ranks (BTDT-2002- out of power for 9 days) .

H decided she wanted to document the storm and scrapbook it to keep herself occupied over the long shut-in weekend. She took hourly, or close to hourly, pics of the progress outside and then lots of pics of the happenings inside. She took the pics above. The last pic is after round 1 of the three punch storm. That is all ice- freezing rain and sleet. It is not snow. We're due for round 2 on Saturday and round 3 on Sunday, with intermittent light stuff in between. Thanks H for the pics.

***BTW: I have noticed that there is another Kim posting on blogs now. I have changed my blog posting name to 6blessings to help avoid confusion. Hope that helps.