Power, Yes… Heat, No?!

So in a weird twist of fate, we got all of our power back on last night!!! We were so excited… only to find that for some reason the heater wasn’t working right! Wow. Could this storm get any crazier??

Luckily, our wonderful Landlord and friend, Robby, is letting us use a space heater. And the temps are a little nicer today.

To make things worse, I went to Lowes to pick up another small space heater and after waiting for 30 minutes for them to unload the truck, they tell me, “Oh, those are seasonal, so we wont be getting anymore until next Winter.” I said, “Pardon??” (the manager repeated). Then I said, “What season is it?” He said, “Winter”. Then I said, “Shouldn’t you order a few more then? This doesn’t make since.” He told me that they stopped ordering them three weeks ago. This has happened to me with several “seasonal” products and every time I am amazed. Did you know that midway through summer they stop carrying lawn mowers!?

This seems like a big opportunity for small business owners. What an effective local commercial that would be! “We carry seasonal items… IN SEASON!” The only problem is that there would be some overstock at the end of every season, which “big box stores” have found too costly. So costly, that they don’t carry items in season. They carry new items, pre-season. So what does a small business owner do with the overage? That is the money making question that I hope someone figures out so I can buy a space heater in Winter and not Summer!

Next post: How to survive an Arkansas Ice Storm!

Still No Power

Day 3… Still no power. We are coming up on our 3rd night and the house is getting colder and colder. Robbie and Erin were nice enough to open their home for us to stop by and warm up by their fire and have a wonderful hot meal. Katie baked me a cake and made some rice crispy treats for us to munch on while we play with the kiddos. They offered a place for us to sleep as well (as others of you have) but sleeping is the easy part. We have a few 20 degree sleeping bags that keep us really warm and the dogs are going to love to cuddle with us tonight. Thanks for all the offers. We appreciate the “warm” friendship and a chance to charge up all of our gadgets!!

In the mean time, keep all of us up here in NWA in your prayers. The schools are still closed tomorrow and temperatures are going below freezing again tonight so everything that melted today is refreezing right now. I’ll post pictures as soon as power is restored (and maybe some video). It has really been amazing. All of the WHITE drooping trees look like something from Dr. Seuss.

Stay warm!

Powerless…

Just letting everyone know that Katie and I are still without power. Roads are super bad in oir neighborhood. We’ve been in the “dark” for almost a full day now. Using a mobile for this post. Keep is in your prayers. It is getting cold!! SWEPCO says that we will be out until the 31st. Weather is slowly getting better.

Two Thousand And Eight! (2008)

Wow. This year, the year 2008, we celebrated our 2nd wedding Anniversary, our 26th birthdays, visited Guatemala, started a few new jobs, started a new community group, failed some physical fitness goals, met some physical fitness goals, fell back on those fitness goals, went to almost ALL of the baseball home games (FREEZING!), got involved with Quality Deer Management on our property (started the education), hunted a few new deer stands, and it feels like just yesterday I was sitting and thinking about the future of 2008!

Most Memorable Moments of 2008

• Spending time in the freezing cold, huddled in the outfield with Katie watching the Razorbacks play baseball in unseasonably cold weather with Katie saying (every game) how she wants a red hooded sweatshirt and me saying, “It’ll get warmer next weekend… It always does.” Well, it never did & we just purchased those red hooded sweat shirts for this coming season!
• Falling asleep on the porch in Three Creeks for an hour or two in unseasonably warm temperatures this December.
• Seeing the “BIG BUCK” right at dark, with no chance of a shot, on the next to last day of my hunt! And having an INCREDIBLE time hunting with Katie.
• Arkansas beat LSU for the Golden Boot!
• Houston Nutt left, & we gained Petrino!
• Coach McDonald retired from Track.
• Traveling to Guatemala with the Life of Fellowship Bible Church. We will never forget the children of La Limonada and Santa Cruz.
• Started the first book in MasterLIFE
• Katie went to a Razorback basketball game with her dad (last second shot against Vandy and we won!)
• 96th Ranked Basketball Hogs slaughtered 4th Ranked OU in our last game of 2008!
• Moved into our Duplex to save about $250 a month (still have boxes in the garage!)
• Obama got elected (Arkansas went for Palin)
• Saved & purchased our first “Family” Video Camera & I learned to edit videos!
• We saved & bought Settlers of CATAN, an XBox 360, a Dell PC & Katie’s first KitchenAid Mixer.
• The Market Crash of 2008 (homes and lending)
• Planted our first Flower Bed & bought our first Lawn Mower and Weedeater!
• Katie held her first classroom Thanks Giving Feast and took the kids on the “Polar Express” (AR/MO Rail Road from Springdale to Rogers). They were both big hits with the kids.
• We are still on our way to becoming DEBT FREE!
• Started an FPU group that has re-inspired us!

I guess that is 2008 for us in a nutshell. I’m looking forward to 2009…