Crazy Dazy

Whew!  Has it been crazy around here or what?!  Let me just tell you that hosting events in our tiny little home is fun but somewhat exhausting.  There are simply more logistics to think through when you don’t have lots of space.  We don’t even own a card table!  For the record, last week we made dinner for some friends on Wednesday night, hosted our small group (which is not so small anymore…) on Thursday night, and then threw a church picnic on Sunday afternoon!  We were counting on the weather to cooperate this weekend so that we could grill and send folks outside with their camp chairs, but unfortunately it rained (boo!), so we were packed inside like sardines.  Thankfully everyone had great attitudes and it ended up being a really enjoyable time of fellowship.

About an hour after everyone left on Sunday, my throat started tickling and things went downhill from there.  You know how your body sometimes shuts down when it knows it finally can rest?  Well, I think that’s what happened to me, because I’ve spent the past two days sleeping off what I think is the flu.  Blah.  But here’s the cherry on top… This morning our carbon monoxide detector went off, so Matt tried to figure out what the problem was.  Before he could get it all squared away, he had to leave for work.  Of course I was just trying to catch a few more winks of sleep since I haven’t been feeling so hot, but as he’s walking out the door he tells me that he’s going to call the fire department—which, as it turns out, can only be reached by calling 9-1-1.  So as I’m rubbing sleep from my eyes, he jets out the door and says he’ll call me when he gets to work.  At this point I’m feeling less than stellar and slightly confused about what’s going on.  Default: call Mom!  As we’re hemming and hawing over whether or not I should stay in the house or go sleep in my car, Matt calls back.  I put my mom on hold and have a very choppy conversation with him as he’s driving through the parking garage (horrible cell connection).  As Matt is trying to explain to me that I need to get out of the house and what to tell the firefighters, I see the fire truck pull up to our house—lights flashing and all—and realize that I’m in my pajamas and am—ahem—not quite decent, if you know what I mean.  So I hang up the phone and pull on a bulky sweatshirt, usher in five firefighters, and try to explain what has happened with our carbon monoxide detectors (there’s a little more to the story, but I’m not going to get into the details here…way too confusing).  At that point my phone rings again because I left my mom on hold for too long, so I awkwardly answer it and then immediately hang up on my mom so I can continue explaining things to the fire men.

*If you’re still reading this, you get a gold star.*  In a nutshell, the fire men tested our house for carbon monoxide and said they were reading zero (which is good!).  They basically told us to replace our batteries.  Then they said they would send out a man from the utility company just to double check and make sure things were okay.  As they were leaving, one of the fire men asked if we fixed up the house ourselves.  I told him we’d been working on it for over a year, and he said it looked great.  Wasn't that nice of him?

After they took off (I’m sure the neighbors were dying of curiosity), the utilities guy came by and said everything checked out fine.  He also took a look at our gas fireplace (it was converted to gas a long time ago, so we’re talking about an ancient gas fireplace set-up).  We’ve had trouble getting our fireplace to light, but he was able to work some sort of utility guy magic and lit it right  up.  Within a few seconds our house was filled with fumes; apparently the fireplace doesn’t vent properly even with the flue open.  He suggested either converting it back to a log-burning fireplace or installing a new enclosed gas fireplace.  Before leaving he told me we should not use the current set-up under any circumstances.  While I was a little sad that our fireplace is worthless, I was glad to know about the problem and relieved that we didn’t buy any expensive parts to fix it.  We’ll have to decide whether we want to invest in a new set-up or not.

For now, we’re just happy to know that nothing is wrong with our house.  And it’s a good reminder for us—and for you—to check the batteries in the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.  If you don’t have a carbon monoxide detector, go out and buy one today!  Several years ago on Christmas Day at my parent’s house in Indiana, we had a huge carbon monoxide scare.  My mom woke up at 5 am and instinctively knew that something was wrong (despite the fact that it’s impossible to smell carbon monoxide fumes).  She made us all get out of the house.  A utility guy came to the house and found a crack in their furnace.  As it turned out, the gas levels were really high and could have been deadly had we stayed in the house much longer.  It really is amazing that my mom woke up and felt like something was wrong though, because my parents did have a detector, but the batteries were out… Anyway, lots of lessons to be learned here, including that your friendly neighborhood fire/utility guys will check out your house for free, plus they were super nice (despite my serious bedhead and bleary eyes).  As for me, I’ll be buried under the covers to sleep off more of this bug.  Adios amigos.