There are many things

in life that we take for granted, without realising we actually take them for granted. Yesterday there was a fire at the substation in Mackay, and as such power was lost to all but a handful of suburbs. We were without power for over three hours in the morning until it was restored, and many other households in the afternoon had power on a rotating basis - one hour on one hour off. What you don't realise is just how many little things throughout the day use power. You take it for granted. Up here it is probably a little more obvious some of the things you need the power for - as the temperature rises you become increasingly aware of the lack of fans and air conditioning. However it's little things. Heating up the kids food or bottles in the microwave. Cooking some lunch. Keeping things in the freezer and fridge from spoiling. TV. Washing machine. Computer. Boiling the kettle for that all important first coffee of the day....which by the way I didn't get til around midday.

That said I would rather be without power than water. We have lost water on several occasions and it is terrible. Aside from the obvious things like no showers and no washing, it's the one percenters. I wash my hands after changing nappies. I have three children in nappies. Thus, I wash my hands a lot throughout the course of the day. All these children are very very messy little creatures. Thus, I wash my hands even more times throughout the day. And I drink a lot of water, as do the girls. There's no rushing to the tap for a quick drink. It's whatever is in the water jug in the fridge and that's that.

In the perfect world though I would lose neither power nor water. But then again if we're talking perfect world stuff too I'd have my beautiful house on a country property with an enormous kitchen and 900mm oven, huge vegie patch out the back, tonnes of space for the kids to run around, animals, a grand piano inside overlooking nature so I can play to the sunset.

Ah yes. And no, I didn't win the $31 million. But I can dream can't I.....