![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_5631-225x300.jpg\")
It was nine days ago and my husband and I had just arrived\ndown to our houseboat on Lake Powell to prepare things for the group of\nfamilies we would be hosting for the upcoming week. I began unloading groceries as my husband\nclimbed down into the hull of the boat to check our tanks and such. About 45\nminutes later the smell of bleach in our houseboat was so overwhelming I was\nfinding it hard to breathe. I yelled down\nto my husband in the hull but he wasn\u2019t responding\u2026after calling down there\nseveral times with no response I began to worry that maybe he\u2019d passed out down\nthere from the fumes I could smell. I\nwas starting to panic. I began opening\nevery hatch to the hull to try and locate him and after what seemed like\nforever I finally heard a muffled response telling me he was coming out. He crawled out of the hull coughing like\ncrazy and carrying an empty gallon of bleach and an empty gallon of vinegar\nwith him. \u201cYou didn\u2019t mix those did you???\u201d \nI asked. \u201cYeah,\u201d he responded. \u201cYOU\nCAN\u2019T MIX THOSE TOGETHER !!!\u201d I said. \u201cWhy\nnot?\u201d he replied, \u201cBleach is a good cleaner and vinegar is a good cleaner so together\nthey should be twice as good.\u201d \u201cWhen you mix them they are toxic!\u201d I said. \u201cNo\nwonder we can\u2019t breathe!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He didn\u2019t believe me. \nHe thought I was just being paranoid about the danger of mixing the two\ntogether. I grabbed my phone and Googled it and an article popped up saying to\ncall poison control immediately. Still\nthinking it was a big overreaction my husband begrudgingly called poison\ncontrol. When he explained that he\u2019d\nmixed a gallon of bleach and a gallon of vinegar the person on the other end of\nthe line told him he\u2019d created chlorine gas which is toxic. They instructed us\nto evacuate our houseboat and open it up to air out completely before getting\nback on as the gas can be deadly. \nUnfortunately we\u2019d already been breathing chlorine gas for several hours\nby this point and our throats were on fire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As we drove to town around 3am trying to find a hotel where\nwe could sleep, the seriousness of the danger we\u2019d been in really hit us and it\nwas even more so when a call from the Center For Disease Control (CDC) came\nthrough checking to see if we were still alive\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They say your life flashes before your eyes in a near death\nexperience, but in our case it flashed by our eyes a few hours later when it\nhit us how blessed we were to still be alive. \nThank heavens the gas aired out of the houseboat before our children and\ngrandchildren and guests all arrived to the houseboat a few days later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What that experience taught me was that we shouldn\u2019t wait for a near death experience before we appreciate how precious life is\u2026we should treasure every moment and spend as much time as possible with the people we love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking of spending time with those we love – today is my grandson’s second birthday so I have to say Happy Birthday Flynn!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n