So we blacked out the house on Saturday night. The Lizzy McGuire movie ended just right at 8pm and the kids were thrilled and ready for the blackout.

We lit the candles and the house was filled with a nice glow. We turned off ALL the appliances except the fridge. I was so bemused to read the Earth Hour story in ST the next day that one family was watching television in the dark - hello??? Its not about just dimming the lights people! I thought that was really funny and a bit snarky of ST too.

The kids asked what we were going to do during the 1hr of darkness. At first, I was not very sure myself. Having no access to electricity meant no tv, no computers etc - hence no noise. I didn't realise how familiar those were, how much we relied on them for background noise and for 'entertainment' until all of that was gone.

I realised that with the darkness and the quiet, it was as if we stood alone on an island of darkness amid the light from other houses. The uncertainty and the quiet was quite unique (a bit unsettling at first since we're all so used to lights on, whirring of the fan, sounds from the tv etc) and magnified the sounds we don't usually pay attention to - the crick of the crickets, the swooping of the bats, the noises from the neighbour's house, our voices...

Earth Hour made me realise one thing - that with the use of electricity etc, not only does excessive use impact the earth's energy resources etc, but also that with electricity comes the tv, the computer etc - all these take away time and awareness from families, from people. When we've so much 'other stuff' to occupy our time and attention, we forget about what to do when all these are gone. To just relate, to sit back and have a good conversation, to listen to each other, to use our time creatively to play etc.

Had it not been for Earth Hour, my kids would just do the same old thing on a Saturday night - watch a dvd (which they did just before EH) or play on the computer and that's it. Instead, we ended up sitting outside talking about why and what EH was all about, we played a rather loud and boisterous game of 'Monkey', Lolita ate her dinner in candlelight, and we all laughed and cheered Trinity on as she ran up and down the length of the house as if on a private unknown 'race'.

The kids also realised that we were the only ones in the neighbourhood with the EH blackout. All our neighbours had lights and tv and fan on at full blast. They asked me why we were the only ones doing this. I said every family makes their choices. But our choices can impact a lot of people. Climate change might not affect you and me immediately, but it will affect us and our children's children one day. And for us, we choose to make the tiniest of difference. It may not be much, but its better than nothing.

When it came time to switch the lights back on, I felt a bit disoriented - too much light now! The kids enjoyed blowing the candles out. We had a minor incident when Trin dipped her hand into a pool of liquid wax and spilled it over our wooden coffee table and her nightdress. And I ended up spilling wax over my handphone!

But apart from all these tiny hiccups I thought EH was quite a success - in my house at least.