Playing With Fire

Tonight, I almost set the tree in our backyard on fire...along with our neighbor's house. I am mostly sorry...but let me start from the beginning.

It was cold today, which is a real treat in South Florida, so we decided to have a fire in the backyard. We have a small fire pit that we use to roast marshmallows with the kids. Sometimes, we just have a "campfire" for the fun of it.

We still had our Christmas tree thrown in the backyard...and it was pretty dry...and the temptation to see it go up in flames was too great. I threw it on the pit and all of a sudden the flames were at least 12 feet high. The wind came and the flames looked as if they were whipping the tree in our backyard. Then, the fire started going towards my neighbor's house. Before I knew what I was doing, I had grabbed the trunk of the tree and pulled it off the pit.

My husband had warned me and been adamant about how much of a bad idea it was...he had told me not to do it. Usually, I'm the "responsible" one. But, I hadn't listened.

All of a sudden, the realization of how crazy this whole thing was hit me. What had I been thinking?!? I could have burnt the house down...I could have gone to jail for arson...I could have endangered my family and my neighbor's family. I was ran to the faucet for water...my kids ran into the house screaming "WATER" and we were dousing the fire with as much water as we could get on it. It was over in seconds.

I felt so horribly sorry for the whole thing. And yet, as all of this was happening, the one thing that I found to be hilarious was the fact that my children had run in and grabbed coffee mugs and only filled them halfway with water. When they had thrown the water on the fire, all you could hear was a quick little sizzle. It was so funny, despite it all. Even after all of the craziness, the cuteness and innocence my children showed was priceless. I'll never do something like that again, but I'll never forget their reaction.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot...I didn't have anything interesting to eat today.