the house fire

5:30am. John wakes up, jumps out of bed. "Oh my god." Nicole says, "What!" John says, "the house is on fire." I opened my eyes and the room was full of smoke. We woke up the girls and carried them out of the house. The fire dept came in less than 5 minutes and bravely entered the house. The fire was put out and they used big fans to blow the smoke out of our house. The cause... linseed oil. John had thrown a rag covered in linseed oil onto a rag pile - not knowing that linseed oil spontaneously combusts as it dries. The rag pile was in our basement storage room. The fire was small, thank God. We were all fine. We were all very glad that John woke up when he did. This was about 3 weeks ago. We are getting all the remnants cleaned up. Our insurance company is paying for lots of cleaning - which is very nice. John and I think it could possibly be Opal's first lasting memory.