I Suck At Losing Electricity

today we honor one of the greatest (if not the greatest) civil rights leaders in the united states... martin luther king jr... and what better way to kick off the day than to lose electricity. i definitely suck at losing electricity.

due to the snow storm, karen and i woke up this morning with no electricity in the house. i suppose waking up with no power beats waking up to the sounds of gushing water from a broken water pipe. so i guess that's a positive.

the power, however, thankfully resumed just in time for me to start working... and also thankfully before the battery in our security system died... and also thankfully before the battery in our smoke and carbon monoxide alarms died. (the low battery warnings were starting to worry me at one point.)

when i was in bed waiting for the power to come back on... i started to think about last year. it was one year ago on this very day that i organized a photo scavenger hunt with some of my friends (jen, kerry, hot amy, andrea, and terri), my favorite sister-in-law (janine), my favorite brother-in-law (pj) and karen. the only reason why i happen to remember this date is because at the time, i purposely selected january 19th as it was one month after my birthday.

(pictured below are karen, andrea, janine, and pj crossing the street duckling style.)


for anyone curious, the team above (called didgi's devils... as led by team captain, andrea) won the photo scavenger hunt. of course, given that the other team (known as 2-pt muffins... as led by jen) had hot amy who is genetically predisposed to losing, as well as her sister, terri... the chances were stacked against the 2-pt muffin team.

anyway, i think everyone enjoyed the event. at the time, the photo scavenger hunt was something new and different. since that event, i have thought about organizing another photo scavenger hunt... just this time with a few more enhancements to make things go smoother. (tallying up the points at the end took quite some time.) i sometimes get torn between trying to duplicate the success of the event again or simply letting last year be a one-time thing. like most things these days since my son (braden) passed away, my desire and motivation for organizing a scavenger hunt again generally changes with my moods.

needless to say, one year ago today was definitely a simpler time. as i was still lacking any motivation tonight, karen and i went out for dinner at "not your average joes" located in norwell.

as usual, the food there was delicious. (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound.) i had the special cranberry glazed chicken. the only drawback of "not your average joes" is that the portions are smaller now. i remember the last time i ordered the same dish: the pieces of chicken were huge; there were a ton of butternut squash; and there were plenty of asparagus. (and yes, my urine did smell afterwards.) in comparison, the meal tonight looked tiny, but still delicious. i attribute the smaller portion to our flailing economy.

regardless, not having to make dinner was probably what i needed today. plus, going to not your average joes allowed karen and i to use the free gift card that we received for... oddly enough... getting ourselves a gift card to the restaurant during the holidays. so all in all, it was a good meal.