"Check & Double Check"

One precious and amazingly strong partner, Claudette.  Check
One beautiful son Peter                            check
One creative son Jonathan                        check
One studious son Michael                         check
One charming son Adrian                          check
One gifted daughter Miguette                     check
One inspirational daughter Alisha               check
One brilliant grandson Colby                       check
One kind and gentle granddaughter Kylie    check
One teeny weeny pending grandchild ......    check

An that is my checklist for all that is important.  They are the  priceless aspects of life that today I am immensely grateful for.

There are other things, but...sometime shit happens to "things'''

Motor homes!  Who gives a fuck!

RV garages!  Who gives a fuck!

Even this! (the inside of our garage attic!) Who gives a fuck!

I'm sitting in my own living room right next to Claudette as I type this.  I think we were perhaps one minute away from staying at a hotel tonite.  I have never felt so afraid, or so out of control my entire life.  The fire started in the motorhome.  I was running the generator just to charge the batteries, and when I came out of the house 20 minutes later to shut it off, I realized it had already stopped.  When I opened the RV door it was only to get a face full of black acrid smoke.  After a bunch of stupidity on my part I finally realized that my wife was right and called 911.  I'm pretty sure that the amazing volunteers of the Central Elgin fire department were here within 15 minutes, and thereby saved our home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I won't bore you with any more details but I needed to at least tell you about it.  Pretty hard to write a daily blog and then just pretend that one whole day never happened.....much as I'd like to do just that.

As usual my wife probably saved our house as much as the firefighters.  And as usual she was a tower of strength the whole day.  I'm still feeling totally overwhelmed, and what's oh so difficult for me, I feel totally out of control.

I'm gonna try very hard to focus on all those important things I mentioned earlier, and let the insurance people hopefully do the right thing by us.  Of course we will never recover our costs, especially regarding the motorhome, but it is what it is.

And did I mention the good people from three local volunteer fire departments!!!  There was one very special one amongst them who's name I never got.  I think Kylie will remember him forever though.  After all.  He gave her "Sparky the Dalmation"!

And all's well, that ends with well, with my family well!!  Colby, in case you're wondering, will only find out when he gets back from camp in a week.  I'm gad he wasn't here. 

And I got no ambition to find an appropriate quote for this post, but if you have one I would live to hear from you. Peace!

Love

Peter