Since moving up north where temperatures are a little lower than we are used to, we have made it part of our routine to drink hot tea every evening. Last night, I put the water on to boil and sat down to talk to Luke. After a few minutes, Luke’s eyes got really big as he looked at the stove, and he said, “Get it!” I looked over to see smoke streaming up where a bottle of cinnamon was too close to the burner, and the plastic container was melting. I grabbed the cinnamon container a little too quickly, and spilled cinnamon on the burner, which caught on fire (just a small fire :). We caught it before it did anything harmful, and thinking back on it, it was quite humorous.

We were told before we moved into this apartment that if the smoke alarm went off, the fire department would get an immediate signal to come. There wasn’t much smoke at all, but we didn’t want to risk it. So we were scurrying around opening windows and turning on the fan over the stove. We ended up needing the tea even more than we thought, since we got to drink it with a breeze blowing through the house. We also got to drink it while enjoying the smell of cinnamon incense. It smelled absolutely delicious.

Let me give you a tip, though. If you want to enjoy the experience of burning incense while sitting down to a nice cup of hot tea, don’t try it the way we did, OK?