Smokin' Hot

After the kids went to bed last night, Joel decided it would be nice to start a fire in our woodburning stove. It makes the room really toasty, and has the added benefit of warming the girl's room just above the family room. He started the fire, and we turned out the lights to watch a tv show together by crackling fire. *How*Romantic* It kind of was, except I kept smelling something plastic-y, and even asked about it at one point. The kids love to use the COLD stove as a table top for coloring, or as a place to stash things they don't want the baby to find. Joel assured me that he had cleared it off, and that it must just be Lake Effect from outside. *For those of you who don't have the pleasure of living in a metropolitan area and live next to the Great Salt Lake, we have this wonderful thing called Lake Effect when there is an inversion, which makes the air smell like stinky, rotten cheese.* Mmmmm, yummy. Well anyway, we ended up watching a couple of shows, and finally decided to turn in for the night. Joel threw another log in the stove, and as we were walking up the stairs, there was another surge of the stinky smell. I looked over and realized that there indeed was something on top of the stove - Haddon's composition notebook for school - and it literally was smoking. SMOLDERING. And about the catch flame. I quickly shoved it off with my bare hand, and it skittered onto the stone underneath, still smoking. The binding glue had been melting onto the surface and making the smell, but the heat had just gotten to the paper. We were so lucky to notice when we did - or I'd hate to think about what I could be posting today! This morning when Haddon discovered his charred book, he said "Dad, can we stop letting the dog in the house at night????" Hahaha. I guess I can blame everything on the dog. Can I tell Haddon's teacher that the dog burned (rather than ate) his homework too?