We don't have a fireplace, and I had been warned by many concerned relatives that we were in a dangerous position should we lose power with the approaching ice storm and subsequent below freezing temperatures. Everyone gets excited about a storm—the weathermen, grandparents, my 4-year-old. Even I felt invigorated with a delightful sense of new purpose. 

Storms are an event, a call to action, in which the rightful occupations of one's time are self-evident. There are things to do in preparation: wash everybody's hair in anticipation of days without water, go to the store for trail mix and bananas, charge the batteries, fill the tanks. We did all those things, and then piled the kids in the car and went to my parents' house. They have two fireplaces, and lots more space for stir-crazy kids.

In the morning we awoke to a world encased in ice, like opening up a geode or a jewel box, so we took the kids for a walk down in the lower field and up through the woods. The air was surprisingly mild and our boots broke through the ice-glazed cowpie like the sugary crust of a crème brulée. 

We toasted the remainder of the day with hot chocolate, books, and chicken noodle soup. It was one of the better February afternoons in recent memory. And the icing on the cake: after we cleared the table, but before the washing up, the power went out—the moment for which we'd been waiting. We gleefully lit the oil lamps and nearly every candle in the house, and sat down on the couch, listening to the wind. Now what?

Sometimes my husband and I play Euchre with my parents, but the old-timey movies and "Little House on the Prairie" episodes really deceive viewers about the amount of light a few oil lamps and candles provide. One lamp might provide light for one reader, but it doesn't illuminate a room, so my mom read some Cautionary Tales to the children, we said the Rosary, and then we went to bed, not much after eight o'clock.

My husband and I slept on the pull-out couch by the wood stove, children nearby under heavy comforters. Every two hours, someone had to put a log on the fire to keep the house warm, and I passed a large portion of the night reading Gilead by lamplight.

On the following day, there was less sun. We heated water on top of the stove for instant coffee, which I must admit was terrible. Throughout the morning, people carried buckets from the bathtub to the upstairs toilets where gravity did the flushing. We washed our faces with baby wipes. My dad brought in more wood. And getting fidgety, the kids started to fight with one another.

I have always harbored fantasies about moving off the grid, becoming self-sufficient, embracing a more difficult way of life. It's one of those fantasies that floats in an evanescent halo of unreality, in which I always appreciate life's beauties and bounties because they have been hard-won by the toil of my own hands. See the wisp of hair fall out of her bun as she churns the butter. See the children assist their father with the milking. See the family gather around the fire in the evening with a banjo to sing songs about dewy meadows and broken hearts.