Saturday, July 30, 2011

Well, that certainly fits...

I have long believed that my life was some kind of grand experiment with Murphy's law. I don't think so highly of myself in a religious sense to think that my life is comparable with that of Job, but I do adhere to the premise that most of the time Murphy's law is in full effect, and he is usually lurking around the next corner, waiting to catch you off guard, trip you, and laugh at you as you lay bleeding on the ground.

The latest adventure in the life of Liz is very much in keeping with this lifelong theme.

So what happened now, you ask.

Well, two weeks ago, I went on a nice little vacation to visit my best friend and her new baby for a week, and to help her in whatever way I could. It was a great little visit and a lovely little vacation. At the end of the week, I went to the ranch for my annual family reunion, and it was a great time as always. I came home, returned to work, returned to working on my house, priming the plaster that was installed in my kitchen while I was away, and generally got back to business as usual.

Thursday afternoon, everything changed.

As I was working on some paperwork for my boss, I noticed that the room was getting a little hazy. Knowing how hot it has been here in the Midwest, and that my ceiling fan is not only old, but also had been running for multiple days on end, I figured that maybe the motor was burning out. I went to open a window to vent out the room. Upon my arrival at said window, much to my surprise I see that there is fire in my gutter and on my roof-line just below that window.

Yeah.

Fire.

I grabbed my computer, my wallet, and my phone and I ran out to the front yard. Five fire trucks and four hours later, the upper floor of my home was a charred, steaming war zone, and the lower floor of my home was thoroughly soaked and continuing to drip heavily on pretty much everything that the fire spared. And with that, in addition to a large chunk of my home's structure, a lot of my stuff and 6 months worth of lovingly completed renovations went down the drain.

The fire department determined that it was the result of an old junction box that was over-taxed by the heat. Of course, the insurance company knows that such a ruling would mean that they would have to cut several large checks to contractors and me, so they brought in their own investigator who still hasn't issued his ruling.

So here I sit, in a hotel, in newly purchased clothing, because everything in my wardrobe is either a loss, or stinking of smoke. I will likely not be back in my house until Christmas if the initial time line that I was given holds.

Don't you wish you had my awesome life?