Bring on the Snow

In my first post I briefly mentioned that my family and I were stranded for a few days without power due to a snow storm. We didn’t have electricity. No electricity meant no internet, no cable, no refrigerator, and no microwave. We had none of the technology that we’d come to depend on. The experience was not fun, but it was educational.

The power went out around 4 am, according to the power company, but we didn’t notice it until 7, when my mom woke up because she was cold. She crawled out of bed to check the thermostat and realized how quiet the entire house had become. She let me and my sister sleep but she woke my Dad and they built a fire in the fireplace to warm the house up a little.

Thankfully, we have a gas stove, so we weren’t worried about not having food. At first we thought it might be nice to have a day with no distractions, just have family time. That worked for about an hour, until my sister tried to turn the TV on. She realized she couldn't so she got her laptop out and was going to watch YouTube videos… but she couldn’t because the Wi-Fi was down too. Needless to say, she was a grumpy Gremlin for the next few hours. We were all kind of grumpy.

My dad missed his silly electric blanket that he puts on his feet because he refuses to wear socks. My mom missed watching House Hunters International on HGTV. My sister missed searching anime movies on YouTube and I missed watching How I Met Your Mother on Netflix.

It was then that we realized how much we let technology affect us. We used to have game night every Saturday where we’d battle one another for the title, Champion of the Board, but now we play apps on our smart phones. We used to sit at the kitchen table when we had dinner, but now we huddle around the TV and fight over the remote. We used to cook dinner together as a family, but now we just throw a frozen pizza in the oven and go back to our respective rooms and ignore one another.

I’m not saying it’s all technology’s fault, because some of the blame lies with us. But technology has been detrimental to my family. I am very thankful we were left without power for a few days because it took some of the technology out of our lives and put family time back in.