The best excuse ever for not having to cook?  Power outage.  I LOVE hurricane Irene.

There are several good things about suffering through a power outage:

1. Everyone in my family actually started talking to each other in person; I didn't get a text from my son upstairs asking me what time dinner was happening.

2. Unless you have a new fangled charger, no one was able to stare into their electronic devices once they were out of juice, which brings us back to number 1.

3. NO COOKING.  

4. Greatest time ever to clean out the fridge and freezer.  I still can't figure out why I buy and freeze so much ground turkey.  My family hates ground turkey.

5. Going Au Naturel: We all must take quick showers so as not to waste the remaining hot water.  That also means we will win if there was a "crazy wild animal" looking family contest.  Not to mention the odor.

6. Baseball season came to a grinding halt, no MLB on every TV in the house tonite.

7. Did I mention, NO COOKING?

8. Good to know the camping gear still works. It's Mom vs Wild at my house.

9. No way to do laundry unless it's old school.  Hand wash,  hang dry.  Sorry those days are over.  It's more like finding things in your closet you forgot you had and finally letting your kid wear the same underwear everyday.

10. Finally, I was legitimately able to settle into the new book without the usual distractions.  Reading by candlelight at night, just like Abe Lincoln.  My only problem is that I couldn't couldn't see shit by candlelight!