Saturday, December 31, 2011

Divine Intervention?

Some bargain after-Christmas-shopping yielded me a Christmas tree for the condo.  Mind you, that was not my intention to ever have a tree for the condo, but Target was having a 70% off all Christmas paraphernalia and this tree caught my eye.  Actually, the tree that caught my eye was part of the ornament display, but the salesperson wasn't really interested that I was interested in that one.  My shopping buddy however, found the very same tree in a box and after we checked the price, I decided that it would be going home with me. 


I was not going to put it up as it is New Year's Eve, but I wanted to make sure that all the parts were there and secretly I also wanted HWNSNBP to see it so as I was cleaning the downstairs this morning, I took a break and put it together.  It is very sparkly, which you can't really tell from the pictures and the box says it's Apple Green.  Well, the tinsel branches are two shades of green.  And it's really skinny as you can see. 

After I had it up I was racking my brain to try to figure out if we had anything down here to decorate it with.  First I came up with this blue and white clothesline that was a dollar store find and currently not being used.  That made a nice garland.  Then I came across a bag of shells and things from the Christmas Tree Shop that had 5 resin starfish in it (the sand dollars were too big I thought).  And lastly I remembered that I had a couple of fat quarters of sea themed fabric I had picked up to see which I might like for pillows.  Since they weren't being used, I took one of them and tore it into 1" strips and made bows for the tree.  One of the others was used to wrap around the tree stand.


I am quite smitten with how this turned out and feel that it was meant to be, but that, however, is not the divine intervention I referred to in the title of this post.

As I had been distracted from the vacuuming, after I finished the decorating, I went back to finish and when I turned the switch on the vacuum cleaner there was a pop and it went dead.  I checked out the receptacle that it had been plugged into and it was still working so I was trying to determine if it was the plug on the cord, which had already been replaced once.  I plugged that into another receptacle and nothing happened.  Wiggled the cord again and tried another receptacle (yes, I should have given up before this - I did not know why I was compelled to do so).  This time when I plugged it in, it made a loud POP and sparked and I knew that I was done fooling around.

As I sat down to call HWNSNBP to see if he could pick up a replacement cord on his errand run I just finished the call and noticed some smoke coming from over my shoulder.  I thought that the receptacle was on fire, but upon further inspection I saw that the smoke was coming from the bag that I carry my cameras and chargers in.  I took it over to the tile landing and dumped it out still seeing a wisp of smoke coming from it.  What crossed my mind was that the plug had thrown a spark, but that was not the case.  One of the rechargeable batteries had become engaged in the charger and had overheated - without being plugged in - and the battery was charred and super hot and the charger's plastic casing was melted. 

I shudder to think that if I hadn't stopped to decorate the tree - if the vacuum cleaner hadn't shorted out - if I hadn't decided to sit down and call HWNSNBP, I would have been otherwise involved in something like my next task of taking a shower, when that charger started smoking and, well, things would definitely not have worked out to my (our) advantage. 

I will be toasting my Guardian Angel tonight!

3 comments:

  1. That's a sweet little tree - I like that tall thin shape. And trust you to decorate it so beautifully out of thin air, so to speak.
    Gosh, that was lucky with the battery and charger!! I'm glad you caught it before it had really started to burn. That wouldn't have been the sort of start you want for 2012.

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  2. Oh, my goodness. So happy to hear that your Guardian Angel was hard at work, the other day. Funny how things work out, sometimes. Will you ever be able to trust a battery recharger, again? Love your little tree, by the way. You'll have fun with it next year. Happy 2012, and happy stampin'! Doris

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  3. Yes, it's funny how those things happen. We had a similar experience. We had a kitten who started climbing the stairs to the second floor, so we decided to put netting up so she couldn't fall through the railing down to the first floor. As we were near the guest bedroom, we heard dripping. We rarely go into that room. Upon investigation, we discovered water was dripping out of the a/c vent on the ceiling and there was already a little damage to the hardwood floor. My husband went into the attic to discover the a/c drain pipe had cracked. While I was standing on the attic ladder watching him, I heard a sound coming from the outside wall. That's when we discovered bees had made their way in and were nesting behind the wall. If our little kitten didn't decide to climb the stairs that day, we would have had more water damage and bee damage. Guardian Angels are a huge help.

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