Blessings

Last week was a crazy week.  On Tuesday evening while watching TV with my Mr our power went out.  Or so we thought.  It was just like what happens when lightning strikes a tower and you hear that pop and then the lights are gone.  Only ours were only kinda out.  They stayed lit very dim.  They did shut off for a second or two a few times.  We hoped up and I checked to see if the neighbors had lost their lights too, but oddly their homes were all bright.  My husband went out to the garage and checked the breakers but nothing was really amiss.  The fuses to the kids bedrooms were flipped.  Odd....  Anyways, I couldn't find the emergency number to the electric company so I called my girlfriend whose husband works for it in the hopes of getting the number.  My husband hoped on the phone to talk to her husband and while relaying what was happening he asked me if I smelled that.  I didn't really smell anything, but I stood up from the couch and when I did I smelled the smoke.  He quickly hung up and headed toward the hall behind the garage.  When he got to the laundry room he opened the door and a big cloud of black stinky smoke rolled out.  We had no idea where it was coming from and feared it was an electric fire in the walls.  I quickly got the kids out and then ran and put the dogs out back.  My Mr called 911.  I took the kids two doors down to my friends and asked if they could stay there that I was sure the house was on fire.  Her husband reacted quickly and brought a fire extinguisher.  When he got to the house and they went to the laundry room again they  realized it was coming from the washing machine.  They extinguished the fire and got the machine out and made sure nothing else was on fire.  The fire trucks got there as the boys were taking the washer out.  Upon inspection we found out that we had had a power surge due to the fact that we had no ground coming into our house.  Scary stuff.  

The blessing in all of this is that my Mr was to have been gone on a trip that day.  It had been delayed.  When my Mr isn't home I go to bed when the kids go to bed.  I read to the light of my Kindle.  I would not have known what was happening until it caught the blankets that I had just put in front of the washer to be washed the next day on fire.  The end of the house would have gone up quick cause I keep my sewing stuff in the laundry room.  What a blessing that his trip had been delayed.  We had to have serve pro come and clean the walls and clean all the flame retardant up and get all new appliances cause it zapped all of them.  My fridge caught fire too.  That we were able to have repaired.  

 Washer

 fridge

My new front loaders!!!

I know it could have been a lot worse.  I thanked and praised God all night for his mercy.  Things are getting back to normal.  My house is still a little upside down, but praise God we are all OK and it was only appliances that we lost.