Hush little baby, don't you cry

I have a ginormous headache. I don’t know whether it’s from the stress, or the smoke, or the fumes from the melting plastic, or the dust from the fire extinguisher. I’m guessing it’s from all of the above. Mom, don’t worry. The house is still standing this time, and no one is hurt.

I was cooking as usual. I should’ve known to quit when I spilled hot liquid down the front of my shirt, but I didn’t. I was just trying to get too many things done, and then I left a plastic cutting board on the stove top and didn’t realize the burner was left on. (I still don’t know how that happened!) I set the timer for 30 minutes and went to my desk to read Ryan’s paper for his college final. It was 12 pages of technical stuff, so very hard to read. I was concentrating intently on it and even wrote to Ryan about a typo. I smelled something “funny” a few times, but when I looked over I didn’t see any smoke or anything, so I figured all was well and I went back to reading. When the timer went off, and I started walking towards the stove I immediately saw what was smelling funny. It was the plastic cutting board with a huge hole melted into it and fire covering the surface.

I didn’t panic, but I lost all reasoning. I went over and picked it up and threw it into a pot of water in the sink. Yep, all the while it was in flames and dangling melting plastic from the stove to the sink. After that I had 2 fires on my hands; one in the sink, and now that the cutting board was off the stove that one took off!! All that plastic that melted onto the stove top was in flames. It was obvious that the water wasn’t going to put out the one in the sink, so I grabbed the fire extinguisher and figured out how to use it. The first shot I missed the fire completely. But after I got my bearings with it I managed to get both fires out.

The house was totally filled with black smoke by this point, but none of my smoke detectors went off!! I opened all the windows and turned fans on but the house is gonna stink for a while I imagine.

So, I was pretty shaken up, and I mean I was literally shaking for like an hour. I was immediately back in the days of the last fire remembering how terrible it was. It freaked me out that it almost happened again. I never want to have another house burn down or have anyone in burn unit like Darryl was last time for 2 months. Such awful, painful memories brought me to tears. And knowing what a stupid mistake this was, and could’ve so easily been avoided.

After I had a good cry, I ditched dinner for tonight and spent several hours trying to clean up the mess from the fire extinguisher and the plastic. I thought I could clean the stove, but it’s ruined so I won’t be able to cook till I get a new one (it's only a year old!). I feel really bad about that, but at least there were only a few minor things damaged. No one was hurt, and the house is in good shape, so I am praising God for that!!

Here is the cutting board that started the whole thing.The rest of the plastic is under here. Fire extinguisher dust got everywhere. It's totally ruined. Darryl was very upset, because like me, he remembered how devastating the last fire was. The thought of it shook us both up pretty bad.

Ryan said to me, "If I were there, I would be saying how that just made my day so much more interesting."

Hehe, thanks for cheering me up, Ryan.

And here’s Kyle’s contribution this morning before all this happened.



(I know the grammar in this post is awful and messed up, but I don't care so don't bother telling me.)

Dear Father,
Thank you for answering my prayers,
Irene