Burn Us Up

So today has been fun...
It's 8 in the morning and today has already been pretty eventful...
(If you read nothing else from this, check out the 3rd paragraph.)

I got up this morning at 6 to work tech at church (after a wee 3 hours of sleep) and was getting ready right on time when I decided it was colder in my room than I think it had ever been, so I decided it was finally time to turn on my heater...especially considering my roommate was gone for the weekend. That girl gets so hot in her sleep. I thought I was bad, but if it's not FREEZING in our room, she can't sleep. Which, I really have no problem with that because I get hot in my sleep, too, but sometimes it makes me all the more reluctant to get out of bed. Anyway, so I turn on the heater. Side note: my house is brand new and the heater has never been turned on. So I turn it on and start smelling smoke. It was kind of like that smell that you get when something gets singed and smells smokey... so I'm like, "uhh, maybe all new heaters smell like this the first time?" Well, apparently not. A little less than a minute later, my smoke alarm goes off and I'm like, "well this is just fantastic." Luckily, there was only one other person in the house for me to rudely awaken. So I call security and I'm freaking out because I really thought my house was going to burn down and they send an officer over. Well, it stopped just before the officer got there, but I was still a little weary. Unfortunately, this is not the first time my fire alarm has gone off. I think it's the 4th time or so...but I think this is actually the first time it has ever had a reason. Really comforting, eh? Yeah, it's gone off several times for nothing, but one time smoke was billowing out of our oven after a roommate's chicken finished roasting and no smoke alarm. Made me feel super duper safe. As it is, apparently the people who built the 2 new townhomes skipped a lot of corners anyway, so I knew it wasn't exactly 100%, but I never considered it was unsafe. The officer was like, "yeah, you need to get this checked out..." He thinks that maybe it was emitting carbon monoxide that might have triggered the alarm, which is 10x better, don't you think? Maybe now I just won't know I'm dying! Although, I must say that if I had a choice between burning to death and being poisoned by my air, I think I'd choose the latter. I hear CO poisoning is kind of peaceful, as far as deaths are concerned. ...Sorry to get all morbid on you, but just sayin'. Anyway, I thought they had looked into and fixed the issue with my fire alarm before, but perhaps not. Although, I guess it did have a reason. The really bad news of all of this: I'm pretty sure it short-circuited my AC because it was pretty dang toasty when I left. Pretty sure if I had to choose between a hot house and a cold house I will always choose the latter. You can always put things on, but there's only so much to take off before you're clawing at your skin.

I was getting short on time after my fiasco to be at church, but I was still concerned, so I asked the officer to come check on my house 20 minutes later and make sure it was okay for my sleeping roommate's sake, grabbed my artwork, the Narnia drawing Lindsay Landry drew for me, and laptop and headed out. I tried to think about if there was a fire and what I could really never replace and I decided on those things. Besides, I didn't have a lot of time and I didn't want to be too paranoid. I also grabbed a picture of my dad and I from when I was 2 or so. I'm sitting on his lap and he's looking at me. One of my favorite pictures. The other pictures I knew could be replaced, but that was an original from 1994 or so. I have the only copy and I'm pretty sure the negatives are either nowhere to be found, or they're in a box in my dad's closet...which is kind of like saying they're in a black hole. The only other things I could think of that are irreplaceable (or at least a complete pain to replace) are in a fire-proof safe in my room, so I decided to just leave them there. Feeling good about that particular purchase right about now :) Inside of it includes my passport, my roommate's passport, my social security card, a few random documents and my late great aunt's jewelry that my mother would MURDER me for if anything happened to them. It's this gorgeous 3-opal ring set in gold with little stud earrings to match. They're quite beautiful.

Anyway, it got me thinking about what is most valuable to me and what I thought I could never get back. It kind of put into perspective what I really care about and how silly some of the things I keep around are. I mean, it's just stuff. Some of it is fairly important stuff, but stuff nevertheless. When it came down to it, I grabbed some of the only things I knew I could never get back. I would be entirely helpless without my laptop, or rather the information and files on it, and I would be devastated without my finished artwork. Not that I couldn't do some of it again, but ya know... Now, with all this being said, I don't actually think my house has burned down, but I didn't want to be overly confident.
It makes me wonder if there's anything in my room more valuable that I might have skipped over...
I thought maybe about grabbing my Bible, and some of you might be grumbling over the fact that I didn't, but I realized that even that is replaceable. Now, don't get me wrong...I'm not saying what's IN the Bible is irreplaceable, I'm saying that I have, like, 5 Bibles at least and I know I can get another without losing the meaning or love. Get what I'm sayin'? Just as before, in the book of Daniel, the Holy Spirit cannot be harmed by flames and nor can my belief in Him.

What would you grab if there was a fire?