It's been so cold lately that the power lines snapped and left a portion of our town without electricity. With howling winds the house creaked with cold stiff boards, I lay in my warm bed thinking how I might take up hibernation as a lifestyle, and then the power went out. My teenage daughter was in the shower, and yelled out to my husband, "Turn those lights back on." She thought he was playing a joke on her, or giving the subtle hint that she had been in the shower long enough. But he was in the kitchen making coffee when everything went black. He was innocent.

My daughter emerged from the bathroom and said, "Now what?" She was dripping wet and still had an hour to go before school. I could hear the commotion outside my bedroom and revelled in the fact that I was still in my nice warm bed. "Might as well stay now," I thought.

My husband, solution oriented and the fixer that he is, quickly called the hydro company to find out what the problem was and how long it would be down. "We might be at this all day," the hydro fellow said. "or we could have it fixed in an hour. It looks pretty bad. Better put some logs on your fireplace."

We don't have a fireplace, so my husband's choleric mind went into gear. Being an electrician he has a generator which he powers up when he changes a fuse box to a circuit breaker system in people's homes. He always said if we ever needed to he could hook up the generator and run the furnace. So down the stairs he went to set his plan in motion. (Gas furnaces will still run as long as they have the electricity to run the fan).

He pulled in the generator, hooked up the lines and checked everything to make sure it would run properly. Every time he uses the generator he checks the oil and fuel level, like a bus driver checking his vehicle before he gives it a run. Everything looked fine except he was low on gas. No problem. He got dressed, turned over the engine in the van, and headed out of the garage to a gas station. When he got there he found out the gas couldn't be pumped because they too were out of electricity.

My husband prides himself on being able to think ahead, to plan and organize, and believe me, if there was a crowd stuck in a room that suddenly caught fire, he'd be the first one with all the instructions and orders on how to get safely out of the building. He plans ahead, whether we need these things or not. That's how his mind works.

So, he drives around town looking for a gas station that still has power. Finally, he finds one at the edge of town and returns with a full can of gas. He says, "Those Siberian winds would take your head off." I'm still warm and cozy in my bed, but I hear him call up the stairs. Was that comment for me, a show and reminder of sacrifice like, "I'm out here freezing my butt off for you, honey." Hint, hint, I'll need a pat on the back later, maybe even a back scratch. Okay, I hear.

Just as he pours the gas into the generator the electricity comes back on. My daughter powers up the hair dryer, and finishes her primping for school, all on time.

The difference between my husband and I? He takes action while I sit still and think, "Hmmm, lets just see what happens here."

My point? I tell him, sometimes we can run all around the countryside looking for a solution, or we can just wait and see what happens. Some things resolve themselves. He thinks his way is best. I like mine.