Life in Grace

Funny thing about blogging is that once you start reading someones blog you feel like you know them, even if you have never personally met. I have fallen in love with Edie at Life in Grace! She is completely hilarious, a dedicated mother and wife, a talented decorator, an all around smart and spunky girl...and that is just the tip of the iceberg! My favorite of her posts is this one. Mainly because her decorating style is so amazing...funky and outside the box. Also because that is soooo something I would do, take a ten minute plan and turn it in to an all day house re-arranging! Anyway today is her birthday! She is in need of an extra special "blog hug" this birthday as her home burnt to the ground the Tuesday before Christmas. I pray for her family the peace that only God can provide.

The gamut of emotions that must follow that experience are unimaginable. However as Edie said in her post, the only thing that mattered was that her entire beautiful family, dog included, got out completely unharmed. Thank God.

My heart broke for her as I read her post and at the same time made me think of my family's safety in the event of a fire. I went through the house and replaced all smoke detector batteries. I decided I would do that every New Years and 4th of July. Ordinarily we only replace them when they start chirping and you want to hit them with a baseball bat!

Then Blonde Rascal and I did an emergency drill in his room. I reiterated that should he ever hear the smoke detectors go off in the night, he is to immediately climb out the window. Not ever try to come through the house looking for us. We set an outdoor meeting area by the pool. Then I went outside and coached him through climbing out his window. Of course that turned humorous as he struggled, wiggled and fell to the ground! But I slept better that night. While our "drill" was light hearted and silly, I feel certain that in an emergency the details of how to get out of the house safely would come to his mind.

Then in a dreadful flash of some sort of teenage foreshadowing he decided to try to climb back in the window!I told him in no shape, form or fashion did he need to master THAT skill. That had us giggling again as climbing back in was far more cumbersome than climbing in!

As it turns out Jake wanted to climb in the window too...

Pray for Edie and her sweet, sweet family as they travel the emotional road of re-establishing their home. Then, go change your smoke detector batteries and make an escape plan. I say thank you Edie for sharing this journey with us, as your story may end up saving another family.