Friday, October 07, 2005

Untitled...??

Alright, so I made light of a potentially serious situation, but isn't that the FUN of blogging about it?!

Last Saturday, I went to New Orleans with some other women from our church. We were asked to clean up one of the hospitals. (That whole situation was very encouraging, but I'll write about it later.) When I returned home, I found a BLACK stock pot of burned something or other on the ground outside, and when I opened the door, a wave of smoke hit me. My husband just looked at me like, "what? is it the smoke?" Um. YES. It's the smoke!! WTH?!

Apparently, he left a pot of black beans on the stove to soak, and then he left with the kids for a few hours. When he came home, the house was filled with smoke, and our gas stove was on high...you guessed it, right underneath the pot of beans! You can see where it actually started to scorch the ceiling.

Despite our desperate attempts to rid our house of the smoke, we had to call the insurance company. The damage came from a protein fire, and it takes a special chemical to break it down. Otherwise, our house will continue to hold that smell in the walls, furniture, ceilings, appliances, and clothing!! Now we have to stay out of the house for 72 hours while they o-zone our house, we had to kennel the dog and crash at a friend's house because there are NO HOTELS within a 200 mile radius until January 2006!

All I can say is that we are SO LUCKY it wasn't worse. That night, I saw my baby walk into the kitchen, look up at the stove...and then turn the knob on high! I was floored! I immediately pulled all the knobs off, installed a CO2 monitor, changed the batteries in the smoke detectors, placed a fire extinguisher next to the stove, and took stock in Febreeze.

our insurance went up by 10%.
our deductible is $1,000.
we smell like a house full of smokers.
my baby is to blame.
beans are a protein.

*Needless to say, I caught a glimpse of what the hurricane victims have had to go through, and IT.SUCKS. My heart aches for their pain and suffering. I still cannot even imagine...

13 comments:

  1. wow! That's awesome that you are handling it so well. I'm sorry you have to go through that :-( But everyone is ok and the house will be ok!

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  2. OMG!!! that's scary!!! see that...my dear friend is why i don't cook...my daughter has no idea what the stove is for...;-)~

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  3. Why is that before I was a parent, I would think "Oh that's awful," and now I think "Oh that's awful, damn kids are ruining my life."

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  4. Very, very scary but it sounds like you took the necessary precautions!

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  5. geezaloo... (yes, that's my new word for the day)

    i'm glad that you and your fam is okay. i do think that it's possible that by the time you've raised all of your children... the liability will be much more than 10%. much, much more. consider this your first dip in the pool. i can't imagine it getting any cheaper as life goes on... what with inflation and everything!

    good luck!

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  6. Wouldn't you think that beans, being magical and all, would be able to turn off the heat under themselves thereby avoiding the whole situation?

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  7. That is so frightening. I'm glad that no one was hurt and that your husband got back before there was more damage.

    That was a close one.

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  8. Wow, you are so lucky! It could have been so much worse. Glad you moved the knobs, and no one got hurt!

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  9. K so when you said your house was getting smoke bomb and thats why you couldn't go home for a few day I thought it was for BUGS! Not the smoke. But I am glad it all got taken care of... that sneaky little one!

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  10. Thats horrible! I'm glad it wasn't worse too! My friends house caught on fire because her foreign exchange student left a pot on the stove and left the house all day. Needless to say the pot melted and burned their house to the ground, literally. Fires are scary! Thats so great that you help out with the tradgedies:0) What an angel you are:0)

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  11. Holy cow!! That is freakin' scary. I'm glad it wasn't any worse than it was. I suggest you guys ease up on the beans. LOL!

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  12. OMG - that is really, really scary. I'm so glad it wasn't worse.. seriously. Could there be just one less thing to worry about kids doing to inflict danger on themselves, the house, etc??

    I guess I now need to get some sort of stove knob protector.. if they even make those!!

    I'm sorry you're having to deal with this, especially when you were in the middle of being a "do-gooder".

    :(

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  13. Wow... I just read another new blog I found and this EXACT same thing happened to her! What a scary experience.

    Anyway, if you are interested in reading about this happening to somebody else, check out: http://www.livejournal.com/~jahlizz/

    I found her link in the Ben&Birdy comments on babycenter.com

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Oh come on-- the least you can do is say HELLO!! You didn't come all this way to turn around and walk away, did you? DID YOU??