What a crappy to begin a week

(I am writing this well after the fact but setting the publish date to when things happened.)

So I get a call today at 1:07 from my younger boy who went home early from school because he was not feeling well. He tells me that I need to come home now because the house is on fire, my response is essentially what?? He eventually gets this point across and I head out to see what is going on. About 20 minutes later I get home and true enough the house was on fire. The fire department was there finishing up their job and I just walked around sort of stunned. I did have the presence of mind to turn off the power, kind of surprised the firemen had not done that yet seeing as how it was an electrical fire. I walk around trying to take this in, the house is ungodly mess and the smell of the smoke and soot is horrible, toxic, lots of burning plastic items and coats everything even getting inside drawers in rooms that hod closed doors.

The worst part though is poor Lucky, our German Sheppard was caught in it, the smoke and heat did him in, we buried him out back, will miss that dog.

Not having any idea of what to do I called the insurance company (Allstate) and they hit the ground running, the owner came out to assess things, they called out a contractor and brought on board two companies that clean items and linens.

The contractor, Cedar Crest Homes, is part owned by a neighbor of ours we have known for a number of years. He showed up pretty quick to see what was going on once he got the message on his phone, normally he stays in the office due a medical condition, but he was there for hours, staying even after we left to see that everything get boarded up.

The Allstate agent arranged with another company that handles temporary housing for us to stay at an extended stay place so we had somewhere to lay down that night, not that sleep came quickly or stuck around for long.

And the final thing for this day, the tire on my car developed a sizable bulge in the sidewall. I am lucky it did not blow out when on the highway. My father-in-law changed the tire with the spare for me so that I could get to the room in town.