Wednesday, August 13, 2008

The hole


It's easy to only tell the good, fun and exciting things we are experiencing here in New Zealand.  But the reality of life is that there are tough days, days I would happily buy a one way ticket home.  I thought I would share one of those days with you.  Heating the house with a wood burning stove has been a huge challenge to me.  Several elements are needed.  Dry hard wood - something that we did not have.  A clean chimney - ours was not.  And finally time to keep a fire going - I kept forgetting about it.  One morning I cleaned out the fireplace putting the ashes in a plastic bucket as there was no metal bucket with the house.  I set  it on the floor, got a fire going and forgot about it.  Yes, you can see where this story is going.  I went to Elena's school for a few hours and came home to work some more on tending the fire.  I noticed an odd smell, looked around and saw the bucket.  In panic I picked up the bucket and the bottom, which had melted away, fell to the floor.  There was now a pile of red coals on the carpet.  I ran and grabbed another bucket - plastic again.  I frantically shoveled the coals into this bucket and ran out to the driveway as I felt the bottom of this bucket melting away as well.  Common sense told me that I needed to pour water on the carpet to make sure the fire was not still smoldering.  But wait, that will leave a stinky, ashy mess on the floor.  In a moment of brilliance I decided to vacuum the coals up.  I ran and got the vacuum cleaner and quickly vacuumed up what I was not able to shovel up.   Reality dawned on me as I looked at the vacuum cleaner with a bag full of dust now smoldering with hot coals.  Another trip running out to the driveway to deposit hot coals and melting plastic.  I threw water on the floor and called Chad in complete hysterics.  He came home quickly afraid the house was indeed "burning down".  Thankfully God saved us from my stupidity.  Chad cut the area of carpet out to be sure the underfloor was not on fire.  We are now living with a hole in the middle of our family room floor.  It seems silly that this would be hard to live with, but for the past month I have had to look at a hole in the floor that reminds me that all days are not easy.
In Him there are No Worries - Kris

1 comment:

  1. Oh, I relate...yes, I relate! Someone in our house (it is still a mystery who this person is), vacummed up hot coals, saw that the vacuum cleaner bag was melting and threw the whole vacuum cleaner in the snow and left it there all night!!!
    Spring is coming, right?

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