Memoirs of a Modern Day Mom: November 2012

Ashes from your fireplace stay hot a lot longer than you might realize.

Why would I open with such a statement? Well, our entire lives have been turned upside down because of this one fact. One week ago today, my son wanted to start a fire in our fireplace. No biggie. He's done it before and has done a very good job of it. But the fireplace had ashes in it from a previous fire that needed to be cleaned out first. So he took care of that chore first. He was headed out the back door with them and I asked him what he was doing.

"They are still kinda hot Mom."

"They can't be that hot. They are old ashes...just put them in the garage like we always do."

"Yes ma'am."

So he did just as I told him and proceeded to make his fire. We were having trouble getting one log to burn and it was just causing a lot of smoke in the house. We were giving it some time to try and catch fire before we gave up. I went in my bathroom to get ready for the day and came back out and our utility room was full of smoke. That's weird. I thought. Why would smoke from the other side of the house be gathering in this room? So I went and opened the back door to start airing out the house thinking this one log was just causing too much smoke for my liking. Then I went back to the utility room and opened the door that led to the garage. And that's when I learned...ashes from your fireplace stay hot a lot longer than I realized AND they can reignite.

My garage was on fire.

I quickly told Little Man to grab some water to throw on it and he didn't even hesitate. I thought that would be our solution since I knew that the bag the ashes were in wasn't that big. He grabbed his water bottle and did just as I told him. Again. But the water didn't help put out the fire, it only made it bigger. While he was being a hero, I was calling 911 and waiting for them to pick up. Princess had been right behind me when I opened the door and when she saw the fire, she ran out the back door to the back yard. I told Little Man we needed to get out of the house, this was too big for us to put out. So I grabbed our dog, ran out the front door and over to the neighbors house because 911 STILL had not picked up. I was yelling at the kids to come to the front of the house because I could hear my daughter screaming helplessly from the back yard.

Little Man came and got the dog from me and I got a call on the other line that I decided to answer since 911 STILL had not answered. It was an emergency dispatch clerk saying our security company had called them because our smoke alarms had been going off for awhile and wondered if we needed help. Umm...YES!!! So she dispatched the fire department and asked me if everyone was okay.

By that time I had knocked on 2 neighbors doors, ran to the back gate only to find it locked, ran back to the front of our house and that's when I saw my kids. Yes, we are all safe. And then it hit me...my car was in the garage and the fire was right behind it. When I told this to the lady on the phone, she told me to get as far away from our house as I could but still be able to lead the firefighters to the right place. I got off the phone with her and called my husband, told him what happened and then called my dad since he works just a few miles away. He wasn't at his office but his sweet secretary dropped everything and headed my way.

And then we waited.

It was the scariest time of my life. There was no noise, no wind, nobody was home and we were just sitting down the block looking at my house which looked completely normal from the outside but knowing that it was burning on the inside.

"Mom, I don't hear them coming. There are no sirens. Where are they?"

He was right. I know where the closest fire department is to our house and it's less than 2 miles away. They should at least be where we could hear them coming by now. So I called 911 back. This time they answered!! Did you get the call about the fire? Yes, they are on their way. It's been 10 MINUTES and they are less than 2 miles away....WHERE ARE THEY? Ma'am they are on their way. Just then I saw two policemen race past our street. I started waving my hands like a crazy lady to tell them...it's over here! And the next hour is a blur. My phone was ringing like crazy, people I hadn't even talked to started showing up. We were taken and checked out by the paramedics. We were asked the same questions over and over and over. And then I had to do the thing I was dreading. I had to face my husband. I knew why this fire had started and I couldn't hardly stand to look in his eyes. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That's all I could say. I'm sorry. And he just hugged me. Tightly.

The fire had not left the garage. Even with the door to the house open, it had stayed contained to the garage.

It burned lots of plastic which caused sticky smoke damage to our entire house and was right below our breaker box.

The garage door opener that sits on the wall leading into the house

The heat was so bad in the garage it broke our windows

Things were melted all over the place.

And then we started noticing things that could have made this situation much much worse. And noticing that God had his hand all over it. It's obvious that the fire was going up and over my car because things that were sitting in front of my car were melted but things sitting beside it were unharmed.

Like a propane tank. Less than 5 feet from the fire. Untouched.

A can of polyurethane almost burned through

Cabinet full of spray paint

And the doorway to the house is burned, but the fire did not enter

The box for our security system in the utility room melted

My pretty white trim in my house isn't so white anymore

Smoke filled every inch of our home

My car covered in ash and soot...fixable though! It will take awhile but I'll be able to drive it again one day.

So that's the story. We will be out of our house for several weeks so we are making the best of it in a 3 room hotel suite with a pool and 3 TV's. We might not be home for Christmas but we are all together. And we will get to go home one day. The house didn't burn down, they have saved our clothes and some belongings, and we have each other. That's what matters. It's hard and it sucks, yes, but we still have each other. We have learned that our son is a genuine hero. He did everything I told him to do even though his instinct told him not to. Come to find out, he rescued his sister who refused to leave the backyard while I was trying to get help from neighbors. He went back in through the house to get her, while holding the dog, and then brought them all through the house again out the front door. He knew the house was on fire and yet he went back into it twice. He is a hero.

You probably noticed that I said at the beginning that I was waiting on 911 to answer. This isn't something I've talked about a lot but it's something that will need to be brought to our city's attention. When I made my first call to 911, it rang for 60 seconds before the other call from the dispatcher came in. Our security company had called them to say something was wrong. Without them, who knows how long I would have waited for 911 to answer. Also, when I say I waited 10 minutes, it's the truth. I could have easily exaggerated but we looked at my phone and it was 8 minutes from the time I talked to the dispatcher to when I called back because we didn't hear them. It was another few minutes before they showed up and went inside. I'm not impressed with our 911 service to say the least. I am very grateful to the firefighters, policemen, and EMT's who showed up and took care of us but if I had to look at the 911 operator in the face today, I might not be very nice. I'm just glad our security company was on top of things and got some movement going toward helping us.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Needless to say, I have many things to be thankful for. I'm thankful for my son who is so smart and brave and obedient. I'm thankful for my daughter who has loved and comforted me when I needed it. I'm thankful for my husband who gets that losing his family is a lot bigger deal than losing our possessions and loves me through my stupidity. I'm thankful for those who are willing to be put in harms way for the protection of others. I'm thankful that the bones of my house are still there and that we will be able to go home one day. I'm thankful for my extended family that is close and loves us enough to take care of little things for us like getting swimsuits for my kids because they know they would want to swim. I'm thankful that I haven't had a nightmare about the fire for two nights. I'm thankful for a God that put an angel at my garage door that kept the fire from destroying our house and I'm thankful for the angel He placed in the garage that directed the fire away from those things that could have consumed and exploded my house. Yes, I am thankful.

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, my hubby got a new position in town a couple of hours away. Since driving back and forth every day would be very expensive, we decided the best option would be for him to get an apartment to stay at for the few days a week he is gone. He also can work from there so it's a win-win. However, I wasn't going to give up my furniture and we sure don't have extra beds just lying around. So, he decided to make them! Since I am blessed to home school, we will be able to go down to visit anytime we want so he even made the kids some beds too. And I wanted to show off his workmanship.

Princess was by his side every chance she got. He taught her how to run the drill, let her use the saw, and allowed her to paint.

Here are the kids' beds. They aren't set up as bunk beds at this time but we hope to use them as bunks in the future. When he completed building, we painted them an off-white and they have very neutral bed coverings.

Since we are completely spoiled and were gifted a king size mattress for his room, he made a poster bed for it and then raised it up by about 2 feet. I feel like a princess crawling into it. I love it.

Once all the beds were complete, Princess used her sweetness and asked her daddy to make her a doll bed using some of the scrap wood. Of course, he couldn't say no. :) So they worked together to build it, she painted it lime green and hot pink and then I made some coordinating bedding from some material I had bought but never used. I think it turned out really cute and I love that it was basically a free project.

There you go. Maybe when I get down to the apartment again, I'll take pictures of all the pillows I made and show off some of the cool things I'm using to decorate it. It's a man's apartment, but I had to put my touch on it. :)

Hope you're having a great weekend!