A Frugal Way to Spend a Rainy Day

A co-worker was just talking about how over the weekend, her neighborhood lost power for an entire day.  Something about a line being cut.  Living in the D.C. area, there are plenty of places to go for free when you need to get out of the house for entertainment, but she had a child under the weather, so they all had to stay inside.  She was telling us about all the wonderful fun they had playing games and building forts and reading books, and how it was even an opportunity for a romantic, candlelit dinner with her husband (though they ordered in pizza since they couldn’t heat anything – not the most frugal option, of course).

It made me think what I would do with an entire day at home with no power.  In my hypothetical situation, I decided there would have to be a torrential downpour outside to keep me from leaving.  And even though I have no kids at home to entertain, and to entertain me, I realized that there are plenty of things that I could do.  Things that wouldn’t even require me to use my laptop battery.

I have a small library of books, many of which I keep meaning to re-read and never seem to get to.  I could spend a few hours reading. 

I could catch up on correspondence and write a few real letters, something I’ve not done in years. 

I could page through my cookbooks and plan out some nice meals to cook once I do get power back.

I could work on one of the many creative writing projects I always seem to be in the middle of.

Needlework!  I have so many half finished projects that it’s a bit embarassing to admit.

I think I could come up with a huge list of things that I could do, all things that would successfully occupy a day or more and not cost a single cent (not even for power!).

Maybe we should all think of unplugging for a day every now and again, just to see what we’re missing out on.