What a mess!

Last night I put the kids to bed because Ben was on the computer talking to his Mom. I had worked very hard all day yesterday b/c we had water, which has been rare lately, so I took full advantage of it and washed everything in sight! All the kids bedding got washed, sheets, pillow shams, comforters, stuffed animals. You name it...I washed it! So, I get them in bed, and light the lantern. I've mentioned that we leave one lit b/c the power goes out quite often in the night and we want the kids to be able to see their way around if they have to get up and go to the bathroom. It is quite dark when the power goes out. Anyway, I didn't realize there was a special trick to lighting the lantern. Ben is usually the one who takes care of that part. So, I light it, and head into the kitchen where I wait for Ben to finish chatting with his Mom so we can spend some time together...as he was leaving the next day (today). About an hour later, we head to our bedroom. The hallway was FULL of smoke. The flame of the lantern was high...licking the very top of the lantern. Thankfully our walls are cement and there is nothing near it that could catch fire. If we'd been in the states, we'd probably have had a fire on our hands. We rushed around and got a fan at the end of the hall, and opened windows and started airing the place out. Thankfully our house is FAR from airtight. None of our windows (and we have a LOT of them) really fully close. They just overlap, so there is tons of ventilation in the house. The smoke and haze cleared out quickly. We took a quick assessment of the damage and realized we had a mess on our hands. Well, this morning you could really tell. Check out the lantern:
Everything was covered in that black ash. All the kids bedding...the kids noses were black where they'd inhaled it. Thankfully we still had water all day today. The kids got a bath immediately, and I also gave my washer and dryer another good workout, and re-washed everything I'd washed the day before. I wiped down all the furniture and mopped the floors twice. I had my nightwatchman, Michael, clean the lantern for me. It really was a huge mess and took me most of today to clean. Tonight, I lit the lantern in the parlour, right before devotions, so I could watch and see how it burned. And thank the Lord for another day of water. I think I would have cried if our water had gone out!

Here is the only cool affect caused by the soot I can't believe that little spider in the middle survived all that smoke inhalation!

(p.s. Be sure to scroll down, I've added about 4 posts. I'm all caught up I think!!)