This year, I did my Christmas cards by candlelight. The power at its worst was one hour on, five hours off (1:5)!!! Ugh, it was hard to keep my flat warm but with a large brick heater, two oil heaters, one element heater, and two wood-burning stoves, I managed to keep it at least at an acceptable level (except the living room which remains around 40º-50º F)
I had one minor accident with the wood stove in the living room and ended up toasting the front of one of my sweatshirts and lightly toasting the tip of my bangs. I was trying to start a fire and decided to use some lighter fluid to aid since the wood was a little wet. I forgot to open the second door so when the lighter fluid lit, the flames shot back out the door that I was using. I think I probably said a couple things that would have caused my mom to look at me in horror...in fact, I think I got a look from Smokey, but at least the fire started :) I was probably fortunate that I was wearing my glasses at the time.
The weather has been fairly mild and there hardly has been any snow. We told some of the new people to the project that arrived in spring how cold the winters were...and now we have an incredibly mild one. They don't believe that it was really that cold and difficult last winter :P
