Flame Thrower

Well, well, well! Here we are in the early stages of Spring. Flowers are blooming, trees are budding, and it's freakin' cold outside. But, aren't we lucky? It isn't just cold outside but it is cold inside as well.

A few weeks ago when we had the "Tornado Drill," our electricity went off. When the power came back on, our central heat/air was making a strange noise so I turned it off. Luke and I were in the hallway and I wasn't really excited about dealing with the belching furnace and dodging funnel clouds all at the same time.

This was fine for a few days until the global cooling took effect and we enter the "near" ice age. John went to turn the heat on and it never came on. We noticed that it hadn't come on but we are relatively slow at times (not to mention that I sit next to a space heater a lot of the time anyway) and didn't really become concerned until it went from cold to freakin' cold.

John wanted to call our landlord but I insisted that the house be in a somewhat clean state before we called anyone to come to our house. So, today our landlord sent a heating and air guy from Dierks to see what the problem was with the unit.

It turns out that the unit had been struck by lightning during "the drill." He got that fixed and turned the heat on and John started taking down the curtains and blankets that we had put up to block off the rooms that we didn't need heat. John says the guy tells him to wait a minute. Apparently, when the heat kicked on a 6 inch flame shot out of the furnace and there were actual burn marks on the wall inside where the unit was sitting where this had happened before. He told John it was amazing that the house had not burned to the ground before now. Thank God it got struck by lightning.

There are a few problems we are now facing. #1-It is still freakin' cold outside. It is so close to warm weather that our landlord will more than likely not want to replace the furnace right now (which I can't say that I would blame him). We DO have the one space heater. We went to WalMart to get another one; but they are a small store and only received one shipment of heaters and they are long gone.
#2-The nice heating and air guy tells John all of this with Moriah present. Now, Moriah is a little reluctant to go to bed because she thinks that the house is going to catch on fire. She wants to know if all furnaces have fire in them. But, my favorite is the statement she made this evening........."I don't like the furance in this house. We need to move back to Atlanta, Texas!" As if a furnace in Atlanta would not catch on fire. Oh well, the last part is still a good idea!!!!

So, I am sitting here in the family room, everyone else is gone to bed, and my nose is frozen because the one heater is in the hallway outside our bedrooms. BUT, how thankful I am for that ONE HEATER and how thankful I am that lightning struck our house. I know that sounds very strange but if it hadn't we could be without a home tonight. Or, to look at it from a different angle, the furnace sits right in the hallway next to all 3 of our bedrooms. Thank you God for your hedge of protection!