Blackout Night #1

Okay. I'm calling last night the first Blackout Night because last week's wasn't exactly a solid beginning. And we all like to be offered a do-over once in a while, don't we?
Around 6:00, I went through the house shouting, "Blackout!" as I turned off all lights and electronic devices. That was kind of fun for me. The kids, for whatever reason, decided that the house now felt "cozy" and grabbed blankets and books and headed to their favorite chairs in the living room. I have to agree with them. There is a silence that seems to settle in when we unplug. And even though it wasn't even dark yet, since it's summer, there are spots in the house that are darker and cozier than others.
I've often heard people say phrases like, "it's an old house and the light through the old windows is fabulous!" I'd always hoped for that to be true when I found an old house to call my own. The thing is, my old house has precious little natural light. The old windows that I do have are shaded by the front porch and the carport and the new-ish (relatively) windows are all silly, slim, aluminum ones that work very hard to keep all that dastardly sunlight out. But one thing I love is the "changing of the light" (a phrase I think might be borrowed from Jan Karon's Mitford books) that happens in my kitchen window every afternoon at different hours, depending on the season. I'm often very busy during those late afternoon hours, but when I'm there, I always turn off all the lights and stand reverently, watching the shadows from the trees outside swing and sway across my tabletop. It's a table that was in my grandparents' house from the time they got married (or nearly so) and was in my parents' house when I was small and now lives in my house. My grandpa helped me refinish it when I was engaged to Chris. He never talked much, but made a point of demonstrating the right way to go about this task - making sure your brush strokes all go the same way and that there are no obvious stops and starts.
I walked into the kitchen to get some supper started and caught the sunlight glinting off the warm, gold surface of my table, and I didn't even have to stop to turn off the lights.

We munched down our electricity-free supper of whole-grain flatbread, slathered with Nutella and topped with strawberries in the living room, because it's got more windows than the kitchen. A few rounds of Go Fish later, it was time to scoot the kids off to their rooms for the evening's Quiet Time (that's what we call the hour or so they have in their rooms before Lights Out). It's an odd thing to wander around the house, unsure of what to do next. There always seems to be a way to fill up two or three minutes - check my email, read somebody's blog, turn on the news, sew up a seam on my latest project, and even though knitting fits the rules of what I'm allowed to do on Blackout Night, it seemed to require more light than I had in my living room after the kids went to bed.
But The Porch called to me and I answered. It's cooler out there after the rains have moved on and the sun starts to go down. I grabbed a stitch-ripper and dug into the seams of something that needed to be undone - something I knew I'd never get around to with all those other things to occupy my free minutes when they pop up. Chris grabbed his latest issue of Relevant Magazine, which he never has time to read, and joined me on the porch. We just sat there in the fading light and were quiet. Still. Calm. Peaceful.
"Peaceful" is something I need so desperately right now. I've been feeling a little off-center. A little frantic. It's all under the surface of my day-to-day tasks, but sometimes it bubbles up out of you and interrupts the peaceful visage you try to maintain.
I could get used to this Blackout Night thing...

DAILY BLISS: It's a little early, but I'm going to go with this little guy:

Isn't he so cute you could squeal??