Water vs Electricity

I recently put it to my facebook friends the good old question of "Which would you prefer to be without .. this or that?" You can often have wonderful debates about which one is better.
Because of how life is here in Quakeville aka Christchurch, I opted to ask between power and water. Which would you prefer to be without? If you were not involved in that discussion, take a moment now to think about it, would life be easier without power? or easier without water?

Due to the unpredictable shaking of Mother Nature, I have experienced both power cuts and water cuts. Sometimes they are at different times and sometimes they are both gone together. In light of these inconveniences, I have firmly determined which out of the two I can be more relaxed about loosing.

The majority vote has said that they would prefer to be without power but still have water. It makes sense right. Our bodies are made up of from what I understand to be around 75% water. Please correct me if I am wrong. We can not survive much long than a week without drinking any form of water. Water is just something we can not live without. Our survival is paramount on consuming some form of water/fluids. If we do not, before we pass on to the next life from dehydration, we will experience skin irritation, to hallucinations, also your tounge will swell and crack. Doesn't sound pleasant in the slightest does it. It is very fair to say that water is vital to our well being. It is so important that ancient civilisations formed cities around a water supply. Watering holes became the social gathering place and for many, it is what life revolves around.

But has today's world changed? Are there now other things that are more important than having water in our homes? How easy do you think it is to live without electricity, especially in a natural disaster when the water (if you get any) in your homes is unsafe to drink?
Lets look at how life is without electricity. Well more along the lines of, how my life is without electricity but with water.

First of all, everything is going to be cooked on a barbecue. My oven uses electricity. We can't have open fires in the city because it is illegal. Barbecue needs gas. So off down to the petrol station to fill up my gas bottle. While I'm there, I'll fill my car as well. Hang on a sec, I need electricity to pump the gas/petrol out of the pump, also I only have eftpos, no one really carries cash anymore and that requires electricity as well. Ok Ok most commercial places will have generators, but if their generator is not working, then neither is anything else.
So I get home, open my freezer to go cook some dinner. Oh no! Everything is defrosting. I'm going to have to cook all of this right now! But first, I need to boil some water so I can drink it. Has anybody tried to boil water on a bbq? I have. It doesn't boil. Even with the bbq on as hot as it can go, for a whole hour, it still doesn't boil. I can not make my own drinkable water at home unless I add chemicals to it. You might then want to go look up on the net how much chemicals to add to how much water. Hang on, I need electricity for that. So you call your mum, mums know a lot of things. Oh dear, my phone is cordless, it needs electricity to work. You look at your cell phone, Battery is dying. Dam. By this time kids are getting cranky. They are missing out on their favourite tv show, or they want to dance around to music.
I need to get some washing done and dishes done. I have to hand wash cloths seen as the washing machine also runs on power. Then I have to hand wring them which takes twice as long to dry outside (no dryer) because you can not get rid of as much water from the cloths as the washing machine can. Dishes also done by hand, the dishwasher needs power. You are now the dishwasher, just what your mum raised you to be.
The sun is setting, the house is getting dark, and cold. You move everyone into one bedroom. Its much warmer everyone snuggling in with each other. You light candles because that is the main thing people have for light when the power is out. But has anyone had kids around candles? I have had a few almost fires due to that. I couldn't even go relieve myself without a mischief placing a candle in an empty draw and closing it. Also if it is earthquakes that took away your power, an earthquake can easily knock a candle over. The kids are now asleep, sigh. You decide now is a good time to risk walking through the cold un-heated home to go have a shower. Hey, you still at lest have running water. But it's a stone cold shower. No power to heat the water. So you opt for a spounge bath from water you heated (not boiled) on the bbq. Then you go to bed early because you can't watch your program and the candle light isn't the easiest to read your book in. The next day you head to the supermarket and buy food for the day (you cooked all your food already because the freezer stopped working) and hope they have what you need in stock. No frozen stuff and limited chilled things. They don't want to over work the generators. Your lucky to find anything more than milk, mince and chicken in the chiller.

Ok, so now how is life like without water but with electricity? First port of call, collect water. There are a number of ways in which you can do this. Find someone who has running water and are willing to share, If your council is nice they provide tankers full of water, go to the supermarket and buy some safe to drink water. If it was raining that night, you would have been smart enough to put a barrel or wheelie bin or other large container under a drain pipe from the roof to collect all the water that fell on the roof. You will need to boil this water, but that is easily done on the oven seen as you have power. You are still able to use all the mod-cons of this day in age, the kids are amused, you can still keep in contact with people on the other side of town. You can access information so much easier about what you need to be doing and what exactly is going on around town. There are still some things that you will have to put up with like having a spounge bath. But hey, at lest your doing it in a warm bathroom! Also flushing the toilet is a lot harder, but that's when a bucket of collected water can come in handy, or the strong stomach to handle going in the garden with the cat. Its actually not that bad. When you have to go, you have to go!!! And making a toilet can be fun to do. A great way to get the imagination working.
When it comes to doing laundry and dishes, its still a hand wash job, but at lest with the clothing you can spin it in the machine, and dry it in the tumble dryer if needs be. But it still gets dryer faster with power.

My opinion from experience, Is that life seems to be a lot easier without water. Even tho it is such a vital component to our survival, with a little bit of imagination and clever thinking, you can collect water. But you can not collect electricity. You can go down to the supermarket and use your eftpos to buy a few bottles of water, but you can not go down to the supermarket and buy x amounts of power and carry it home in a bag. Unless you have a generator sitting in your shed, life now days is very hard when the power is cut. Our modern way of living just doesn't allow us to still have all our luxuries without power.

Before all of this shaking, my first thought was I would prefer to be without power than water but .....

You can take my water, I will just get my own, But I will scream if you take my power!

One Wheel Van.

A couple days ago, I learned that my Van only has one wheel that is turned by the engine. Is that even right? Well it seemed to be the case that day. When standing behind the pastel green beast, It is the back left wheel that turns. How did I find this out you may ask ... Well ...

I woke that morning at about 430am listening to mischief 2 cough cough coughing away. She did not cease until sometime mid-morning. The amount of sleep I achieved to grab after that time was next to none. Later that morning at an appropriate time to get the mischiefs up and ready for their various destinations, I noticed that my head was somewhat sore. This was not an odd occurrence, as it seems to be happening rather frequently at this given time. Normally when I get up and start the daily grind, the aforementioned sore heads tend to evaporate. That day however, was different. That sore head started to get worse and worse and by mid morning i could hardly move. So I then gathered up mischief 3 and found my way over to my parents house to raid their cupboard for pain relief goods. After I had taken what i thought was sufficient enough to knock this soon to be migraine (although it most likely already was due to my oncoming nausea and light sensitivity) on the head, and also stuffed in my pockets some reserves for later, I found my way back to my house, put mischief to bed and then did the same for myself.
I woke a couple hours later to find that my head was no longer sore, but I did have that slight feeling of cotton wool foggyness. I shook it off and set out to pick up the mischiefs from their places of learning. As I arrived home, I turned my van around so i could back into my drive (for some reason, I do enjoy backing into my driveway and prefer to do this when I can instead of driving in front ways). Due to my mild foggy-headedness and my poor spacial awareness, I missed the drive by a tire width and landed my back left tire in the deep gutter. I put the van in drive in order to get the tire out. But it did not move. Why was it not moving? I jumped out of the car, looked around, just one tire was in the gutter, so why was the other ones not moving to get that one out? I then got mischief 1 out of the car and asked him to look at the guttered tire and tell me what it was doing. As I put my foot on the gas, he calls to me and says "Its just going round and round, that's all, just round and round".
As I stood on the side of the road, with my Van stuck in the gutter, hazard lights on, I watched many people drive around me but none stopped to help. There wasn't anyone to call to help because they were all at work. I didn't want to call roadside rescue because I want to save my 2 free call outs per year for something that i actually solely their help for, like locking my keys in my van and it was only the beginning of the car insurance year. I stood there, on the side of the road, still in my pajamas by the way (under my track pants and jacket - not a good fashion day that day either) about to burst into tears, when I spotted a high school student walking on the other side of the road. I flagged her down and she pushed my van while I attempted to drive my car out of the gutter. Success!!
But it leaves me with the questions .... Why was that the only wheel that was turning? And why did it have to be the one that got stuck? One wheel? Are you serious? I must be wrong. shouldn't I?
I am so glad that day is over. May I not have another one of those again for a few years please.

My past catches up

For those who read my blog rather attentively and love to flip through all the comments that other interested readers may leave, you may have noticed a comment recently by someone from my past.

Darren is an ex-boyfriend of mine. We had a fairly big relationship back at the end of my teenage years. I just thought, he may be reading this, so i need to watch what i say ha ha. He was the guy i dated before i found Jakob. Although there was like a year in between that relationship ending and meeting Jakob. Thought i might make that clear just in case i look like a tramp or something ha ha.
I haven't seen or herd from him in about 5 or 6 years and he suddenly writes a comment on my blog. Although the oddest thing about it is, the day before the comment appeared, was the day Jakob and i decided we needed some "time out" and not talk to each other for a while. We were driving each other more so insane that what we already are.
We have talked a bit and caught up with what each other is doing in life and sorted out how he found me. When we were dating he had a friend called Pete. When Darren and i broke up, i stayed friends with Pete. We are still friends now. Hes the one that feed the ducks with me when i recently went up to Christchurch (post here). Pete was at a party the other night and found that Darren was at the party as well. So they chatted and caught up and Pete gave him my blog address. So that makes me more relieved hes not a stalker.
But it is odd that he just suddenly appeared out of no where the day after Jakob and i decided not to talk to each other. But i do not believe in coincidence's, things happen for a reason. And it just so happens that he has said a few things to me that have made me think. He will have no idea what it is he said or even what i am thinking about, but sorry Jakob i don't think its good for you. I'm not going to shear what i am thinking because it is rather personal. But he has made me think about the situation i am in and where exactly i am heading in life.
So who knows now where life will take me. Not that i knew anyways but i am now starting to think long a hard about a lot of things.

But its November

Its November right? Last month of spring down here in New Zealand right?

Then why did i wake up this morning to find a light dusting of SNOW, yes snow round my house. Its a month before summer and there is snow on the ground. This dose not make sense.

I would love to take pictures for those who do not believe me but alas, my camera is in the shop being fixed. I bought the camera 4 years ago and purchased a 5 year extended warranty with it. Im so glad i did now.

But snow? It makes no sense.

Green eyes of jelousy

'mummy talk to me' Devin so kindly demanded.
'what would you like to talk about?' I replied.
'bees. bees in my mouth'
'oh really. what are they doing in your mouth?'
'ummm bees in my mouth'
'thats interesting. what colour are bees?'
'ummmm black'
'good boy. what other colour are they?'
'ahhh white'
'are you sure? is there yellow on bees to?'
'yeah yellow, bees black and yellow'
'where do bees live?'
'in the garden. bees live in the garden. bees sleep on the flowers'
'wow thats cool isn't it Devin. what do bees eat?'
'bees eat the butterflies'
'ooo ok then'

5 min of silence

'Mummy talk to me'
'alright Devin'
'spiders in my nose'

..............................................

Its harder than what you may think. Some people think that being at home all the time is so good and relaxing. Its not relaxing with kids. Not one single second of your life is your own. You are on call 24 hours 7 days a week. There is no such thing as a weekend, if you are sick you can't "call in" sick and spend the day in bed and you are constantly thinking about what other people need (mainly your children) and you forget about yourself and what you need. Your day is full of screams, crys and the almighty hissy fit tantrums. Although you are never alone, you get very lonely. The conversations you have are either ones along the lines of the one i mentioned before, which is one i had with Devin the other day, or they are to yourself. They say the first sign of insanity is talking to yourself and the second is replying to yourself. Im defiantly on the road to insanity with that one. Ive even started talking to, and answering myself when Jakob is around due to its just become a habit.

I love my children, i love them to bits and would do anything i can to be there for them. I do not regret having them at all. I do however get rather jealous of the things that Jakob is able to do right now that im not. In the grand scheme of life, this time i have now is so very short and there will soon come a time when i can do all those things that i can't now.

The things that im rather jealous of is being able to go out and not worry about the kids, he can go to the movies if he wants, he can have proper conversations with people, he can go spend time with mates and not have to say "oh hold up, baby needs a feed". I went to a Relief Society activity not that long ago. It was hard because Madison wanted me a lot and i felt that i couldn't relax and have fun. Other people came along and held and cuddled her so i could make my crafty things which was great, but i still couldn't relax. He also has many things he can talk to people about. His drama, His kids, His work etc. I have kids and thats about it. Thats all my life seems to be and when i meet with friends thats all we seem to talk about. Kids and nappies and all that stuff. I crave talking about other things, but other things have no place in my mind right now because it is so full up with baby stuff. Some nights i even go to sleep with the echos of Children screaming ringing in my mind.

The biggest dilemma that i seem to be going through with these green eyes is a concert. Jakob has recently discovered the band "Disturbed" who are coming to the good old New Zealand and to my home town Christchurch. I have liked this band since before i met Jakob and he was never keen to listen to this band till the other night when i found an album of theirs for cheep. So i bought it and put it on while Jakob was out of the room. His ears perk up and he thinks "hey these guys are rather awesome, Im going to their concert"
WHAT!!!!!! In one night he is almost forced to listen to something he hasn't wanted to for years and then declares hes going to their concert. My concert that ive been waiting for since i was 19 years old, and i can't go to it because i have a highly dependent child. When i first found out they where coming i thought "Dam. I can't go. Oh well these things happen when you have children and id prefer to have Madison than go to their concert". And that was that, till Jakob declared he was going.

I don't want him to go because i can't go and i don't see that as fair. But as he has said "what happens if they turn out to be one of my all time favourite bands and i missed out on their concert because you had a tan-trum and wouldn't let me go".
I don't want him to go, but i don't want to stop him from going.
Having him go will make me so jealous and grumpy because if anyone should go, i think it should be me. But stopping him will make me feel bad because i don't want to tell him what he can and can't do and what happens if it dose end up being one of his all time favourite bands.
What id like to do is spend that money he would have on a ticket and gas money traveling up to Christchurch on our house. Have it go towards finishing the fence and fixing bits and pieces. It wouldn't be much money but its almost half what we need to fence part of our section (thats building the fence ourselves).

So who am i going to be? The green eyes sulking in the corner, or the controlling banshee.

I hate dilemmas!!

p.s i love Madisons milky smell.

In laws ..... Out-lawed!!!!!!! continued

I have a post in the making that im unsure if i should publish or not.
It depicts the rest of her hissy fit she had after i wrote my last blog.
Im questioning about if i should publish or not.
This was a huge meltdown for her and she became very mentally ill.
I still love her and in respect for her i do not think it is right to publish her mis-doings while she was sick.
But she seriously hurt everyone around her including Jakob and i and if our children where older they would have been hurt as well. They were already affected by it through stressed and hurt parents. And shes still going, and the pain and stress she has caused has far but died away. This is not the first time she has done something like this.
Jakob and I feel that she has smeared our names through the mud to anyone who will listen and thats hurts. So do i want to smear her name through the mud? I have written the blog in honesty and attempted to do so without running her down and showing her disrespect. Although her actions are far from pleasant and do show her in a bad light, hence my dilemma...

To post or not to post???