Weathering the Storm | ShelfTalker.
Not to make light of the devastating storm that has hit the East coast and beyond (?Sandy?), but the blogger at ?ShelfTalker? has a great idea for those especially who have simply lost power in the face of that storm? ? and for any winter storms this year! Be prepared to READ! To and with your children! There?s even some suggested books for you to read to your children. You may not be able to copy the cozy setting that this family in Vermont had, but you can at least make your home a haven for reading when the lights go out. After reading this, I almost felt like I wanted to be shutout from the world and shut in to my house for a week!
Follow the entire post at the ?ShelfTalker? link above; here?s a bit of it to make you wax nostalgic.
With wild weather descending on the East Coast, it might be a good time to stock up on candles and battery-powered camping lanterns, and gather some good books for reading with the family.
?And now, on to the reading! About 15 years ago, when an ice storm hit Vermont, the power in our town was out for seven days. Josie and I put on ice cleats and dragged sleds of firewood up to our nearest neighbor, who was at home with four young kids, her husband stranded out of town on business. We cooked on our outdoor grill, heated water for bathing on top of our soapstone woodstove, and read by candlelight. Although it was a major pain in the neck to lose power, Vermont is a better place for that than many areas; most people have wood-burning stoves or fireplaces for heat sources, are used to keeping extra supplies on hand, and neighbors are great about checking in on one another, especially elderly folks.
People complained most about not being able to use their computers, but the outages ?forced? an unaccustomed together time for families. Gathered together in the afternoons and evenings, they played card games, read books aloud to the whole family, sang along to guitar or piano ? old-fashioned, Waltons-y kinds of entertainment long abandoned in the computer age. And when the lights came back a week later, kids cried. We heard this from so many parents, surprised by how much their kids wanted to spend time with them, and frankly astonished at how much their children loved being unplugged. They felt the peacefulness of their homes, so quiet without the electric hum of appliances and computers in every room, and the slowed pace of the days. They loved the soft light of candles. They drank in the sense of increased community. (Small towns in Vermont are not weak on community, mind you, so this was especially remarkable.) And they loved loved loved being read to. Here was a perfect excuse for teenagers to allow themselves to settle back and listen to stories they might ordinarily dismiss, books they?d loved in younger years that make for great all-ages family reading.
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Source: http://cjts3rs.wordpress.com/2012/11/01/weathering-the-storm-shelftalker/
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