Hey, It's FREE!

See that little bitty flat screen TV???  It looks a little out of place on the entertainment center, doesn't it?  Well, that is our free TV that my hubby won last year in a drawing at our pharmacy (If you read the post from then, you'll find out that it was a drawing he didn't even know he entered!). 

Since early fall, the TV has just been sitting in our room in the box.  I kind of wanted it in our room, but he didn't really.  We're not big TV fans and don't want to divide the family between rooms.  We thought about donating it to a club (PTO, 4-H) as a fundraiser, but just hung on to it.

It's a good thing!  This afternoon a storm popped up quickly to the south of us.  The lightening was fierce.  The kids and I suddenly heard a loud POP!  Out went the electricity.  My husband was still at work, but the kids and I gathered a few things and unhooked the garage to raise it manually.  We rode around for a bit and my husband came home where he was met by an electrician.  He found that the light pole breaker was burned up on our property and it caused quite a bit of damage - our bigger TV (seen below) is gone, the internet router is burned up; home line phones - gone; wireless router - gone; a few lamps - gone; an undecorated, but still up mini Christmas/Easter tree lights - gone, and lots of blown out light bulbs.  Thankfully the computers and all other appliances are all okay.

We're thankful that nothing worse happened.  The POP was so loud, I really thought something might catch on fire, but it didn't. A few neighbors around us had some trouble, too.  The little TV kind of looks out of place, but it will work for a while.  Our long distance/internet provider even sent someone over immediately to help fix the problem.  He helped hook up the little bitty free TV, too!  What great customer service and we were able to see the end of the winning Ranger's game.

Tonight we had singing night during our mid-week worship.  As we sang praises to God, I couldn't help but think of His power and might - within the storms and lightening.  It's an awesome thing, really.