What to do when the electric is out.

When you have younger kids, the first thing you do is establish three or four times which things they can't do because they require electric.  The second thing you do is try to get them to understand that a generator can't run everything and while Disney and Doc Mcstuffins are very important, they do not trump a deep freezer full of beef.  With those things established we moved on to finding things we could do without electricity, which became a form of challenging fun.

We first had a puzzle marathon and labeled boxes that had missing pieces, so if we ever find them we will have a good idea of where they go.  I should note the reason we have missing pieces is because the girls ran a zoo or dog shelter I am not sure which in their rooms for awhile and they used the puzzle pieces for food. I am sure I will think that is funny also someday.  I also realize I should have put the puzzles along with many other items on a higher shelf.

By the second day with the generator underway and it looking to be days before electric would be restored and all of the puzzles finished we moved to project two.  The Blossers bought Jacie a sewing kit and small machine for her birthday last winter.  With no electric I thought it to be the perfect time to get the material out and help Jacie cut out her first quilt.  I cut with a rotary cutter and mat - hmmm.  That would not work for Jacie.  Jacie also does not measure well enough to mark the squares.  Oh and then I remember Grandma would use a piece of cardboard for a pattern.  That is actually how I cut the quilt out Grandma "helped" me with.  I cut a pattern and she was on her way.

I was thinking - this is painful, why did I start this, why didn't I purchase a bundle of fat squares.  Over a process of several days they were cut out.  The work was done 70% by Jacie, so I would give her a C on cutting.  But, for a seven year old I probably should not be criticizing. Then she laid it all out in the pattern she wanted in the middle of the living room floor.

She was then bored, so she left to go do something else.  Her dad came home and turned on the fan and well you know what happened.

I don't know if it is her age or the generation but they want a one minute craft with stickers and paper.  She wants to start a project and for it to be finished in one minute.  I really hope that sewing teaches her patience.

Tonight she decided she wanted to sew.  She sat down at the machine with 100 questions of how she could get hurt because she is cautious like that.  You would have thought it was a table saw or a gun.  Since her pattern was gone, I just had her sew pieces together in a random order until she finished two rows. Then she was bored and I needed to clean up supper so the other seven rows will be finished another time.

That is the status of her quilt thus far.  She wants to enter it in the Belmont County Fair in September.  I have a feeling it will be finished and featured on this blog in 2026.