I never appreciated my electricity before moving to Northport

This morning we had our 3rd power outage of this winter. Maybe some of you are like I used to be and could use a refresher on what it means to be ready for a power outage. Well, first of all no power means no heat. In Bellingham, my preparedness consisted of having some blankets. That won't cut it here in the zero degree weather. My first thoughts when the power goes out now--do we have enough wood for the fireplace and kerosene for the heater. Not only do we need to keep ourselves warm, but the pump house and our house need to be warm enough that the pipes don't freeze. Which brings me to my next concern. No power means the water pump doesn't work so there's only 1 flush of the toilets and no washing or drinking water from the taps until power is restored. Do you have enough water stored? I love baby wipes for all our cleaning needs during power outages. Also I check to see if we have enough disposable plates and utensils to use for eating since we can't do dishes. It seems the outages always catch me when I have a stack of dishes to do, and they just have to sit there until power comes back. Then I think what do I have to feed my family that requires no cooking? A lot of sandwiches happen. As well as canned fruits and anything from the fridge that will go bad. Yes we could cook outside on a campstove or BBQ but that means freezing your patutti off and not really having a good heat source in the house to help you come back up to tempurature afterwards. Is your cell phone charged and ready? Where are the matches and the candles? Can you find them in the dark? I just don't recall ever thinking about these kind of things like I have to now. Here's hoping the rest of the winter has no extended power outages. We've been blessed that so far none of them have lasted more than 12 hours. I love electricity!