When I got home Gabe had just put the baby down for a nap (thank you!) and I immediately complained that I was hungry because I didn't have it together enough to pack myself a lunch. Gabe pointed to the counter, he had lunch waiting for me. He had also gone to the grocery store, which is a chore I've been dreading lately. I am not really sure why. I think because I got out of the habit of going. Probably because about a month ago our fridge broke, a week later we got a new fridge, meanwhile I did no grocery shopping because not much could fit much into Gabe's mini fridge from college. Then less then a week later we had a kitchen fire. It was scary, I haven't wanted to write much about it. Thank goodness our brand new fridge was okay!
What was not okay, was Gabe's face, he suffered second degree burns. I can remember some parts clearly, I was folding laundry, Gabe was feeding the baby in the highchair...next thing I know I am behind Gabe and see fire flare up in his face. The fire started out BIG. After some panicking I grabbed the baby and ran out of the house and called 911. I seriously did not know how much I was going to lose, which luckily wasn't much. I was out of the house by this point but our fire extinguisher didn't work-it was VERY expired and we have another one but we still cannot locate it. Gabe ran down stairs and grabbed his painters tarp and was able to smother out the fire. It is a miracle he did not get injured more. Or our friend Matt who was over and trying to help Gabe put out the fire wasn't injured either. We did lose our stove and microwave. We had to repaint and patch the hole in the wall the firemen made. Who cares, I have my family and my house. It is a blessing we are able to live in this beautiful house. Gabe's great grandfather built it, our cabinets are made of REAL wood. Not the cheap stuff cabinets are made of now. Our microwave above the oven melted but our cabinets just needed to be sanded down and repainted. We stayed with my in laws for a week, and we were blessed with the support from both of our families. The day after the fire I scrubbed down the house with my cleaning lady. When we returned a week later there was a layer of black dust all over almost everything.
Now, over two weeks later it is in the past. Gabe's face looked bad for the first few days, he couldn't go back to work until Friday because of risk of infection, but then cleared up quickly with no scars. He had to go by ambulance to Washington Hospital Center when I asked the fireman why he couldn't go down the street to Fairfax Hospital and he told me because "they don't have a burn unit" I knew it was serious. I thank god that Gabe was able to put the fire out with out further injury because by the time the fire engine got to our house it would have been too late.
Fires start fast and they can start BIG, everyone should have a fire extinguisher, it should not be expired and you should be able to locate it in a moments notice. We know baking powder works, but our fire started too big. If you decide you want to try to deep fry some chicken wings during the Redskins game, make sure you know what you are doing, have the right equipment AND a fire extinguisher by your side. We didn't grow up deep frying anything so we didn't really know what we were doing. The week before the fire we successfully made delicious wings, but we won't be doing it again. We still had all of this chicken so we made wings in the oven this past weekend and I was still a nervous wreck (I sat on the floor in front of the oven window and made sure a fire didn't start, and Jack was safe napping).
God gave me a lot of strength to get through the first week after the fire. I thought I had a dark month ahead of me but a week later I was recovered.
I am blessed with a great husband and a beautiful baby boy. It is nice to return from work to have Jack napping because I can unwind a bit and even nap if I like. Today I had a little kick in the butt by being impressed with all Gabe does, to do some laundry and a few things around the house. I really mean a few. Gabe has Jack all morning, and Jack is non-stop until naptime when Gabe heads out for eight hours of work. Thanks Gabe for always helping me pick up around the house. I hope I'm getting out of this funk of not wanting to go to grocery store, do chores, etc. and I start to do more around the house.
Above was where the microwave was before it melted.
We are so lucky our cabinets are made of real wood or we would have had a lot more damage.
Our kitchen was renovated 18 months ago...we were not due for a makeover but got one anyways, thanks Gabe for doing all of the repair work!
Here is the man of the year...
His nose is still a bit red, but I think my Rudolph looks amazing :)
