Disaster avoided!

I just almost burned my house down. I was sitting at my computer, and on the phone with a friend when all of a sudden, I said, "What's that smell?" I could smell smoke. I got up and went to the stairs and looked down into my basement. Waves of smoke were wafting up toward me.

My heart fell in dread of what could possibly be happening down there. We have a kitchen in the basement that we don't use often and an electric stove that we unplugged a long time ago and don't use except during holidays...maybe. So, I have boxes and other things stacked there because, hey, who cares? It's unplugged.

Well, I'd gone down earlier to look for something and had rummaged through a box on that stove. Somehow the nob on the back had turned on while I was going through the box. Honestly, I don't know how it could have happened and who the &#*% had plugged it in anyway?????

So I coughed my way through the smoke--and yes, the alarm was screaming--to see the corner of the box smoldering but not yet on fire. It had sure made tons of smoke though. So I picked it up and carried it to the french doors we have down there. As soon as I opened the door, the box burst into flames! I screamed and dropped it on the back patio before I caught on fire myself. My heart was pounding and my two year old who'd followed me was crying.

Bry was home so I called him out of the horse corrals and we opened all the windows and doors. We have a super nice set of smoke alarms and by this time, they were all going off. TERRIBLE! I just can't believe how lucky we were. Here we were at home and our house could have burned down around us. Everything gone. That fast. Thank heavens it didn't. What a miracle because let me tell you, that box had been sitting on that hot burner for AT LEAST a half hour. Possibly and probably longer.

Thank heavens for guardian angels and a nose that knows.