Tonight we had our most successful fire yet. Our fireplace is a bit of a mystery to us. When we first moved here, it was one of those gas logs? I was always afraid to turn it on, mostly due to the fact that a friend of mine screwed up her stove when we lived in San Francisco and it involved an enormous fireball and a long-term lack of eyebrows. I'm good, thanks. Crank up the thermostat and put on some socks. (Michelle, if you're reading this...was it Lindy??? For some reason I think it was!)
When my dad did our kitchen, we went from an electric stove top to a gas range. Because we don't bother ourselves with things like
permits or
codes, he ran the water for the pot filler faucet from the hot water heater, and he ran gas for the stove from the same area. At that time, he disconnected the gas leading to the log, and we began burning wood in our fireplace.
Amended: We began
trying to burn wood in our fireplace. I swear to crimeney, I look at the amount of work it takes to ignite and keep burning a few logs right here in the luxury of our home using a fire starting brick and enough newspapers and kindling to choke a horse, and I think to myself....
how in the hell do forest fires happen? Keeping a single log lit is like a full-time job at our house.
Cold weather hobbies: knitting....
... and crocheting. These balls of fabric make rag rugs.
I love making rag rugs...they're such a fun surprise! You just never really know how a fabric will work up, and the whole thing sort of reveals itself over time. So many sheets to prep.
If I ever stop making rag rugs, it will because of this. The stringy bits and elastic bands that are left when you're done tearing the sheets drive me positively batty. Oh, I do hope I'm not jinxing myself going on about all these
problems I have! I'm going to completely fall apart when something
actually happens to me.
Posts
it's getting cold here too.
ReplyDeletei don't know anything about, a stove and eyebrow story - sorry.
but speaking of lindy - i wonder where she is?........
I love the fabric balls! Do you crochet them? I've always wanted to try that - please post some finished pics!! :D
ReplyDeleteExcellent cold weather hobbies! I'm still having trouble with crocheting placemats for my MIL. I don't like the stringy bits-- the ones you made me don't have any stringy bits! Is that because I ripped the fabric instead of cutting it with a rotary cutter or scissors? (FYI... my hubby told me that if my crocheting placemats for my MIL didn't work out that I could give her the ones you made me. Ain't that a man for ya? I gave him a dirty look to end all dirty looks.)
ReplyDelete@ Michelle ~ hmmmm...it must have been one of the 18th Street girls. It's so funny, because I saw Leslie a couple of months ago (I took her to the airport!) and she was saying that she had bumped into Lindy at a Halloween party. Small world! When she and Jerry divorced, shortly after that, we lost touch. Her son, Anthony, must be in junior high by now! He's a couple of years older than Tommy, I believe, as she was pregnant when Erik and I got married. I've heard that she remarried, has a stepdaughter, and they live in the south bay somewhere...Los Gatos, I think? I hear things every once in a while (small world, again, her husband's parents' best friends when they lived in Hong Kong? Totally weird, but it was Jerry's parents!!! I don't even think they knew that when they got together, just so weird, totally random) but I have no idea how to find her these days. Maybe she still works at Cisco? She was there for a long time.
ReplyDelete@ Nancy ~ oh, dude, try to stop me! I'll be taking pictures until somebody gets hurt.
@ Carmen ~ Huh. I've never once used scissors or a rotary cutter...I'm a ripper, for sure! I also compulsively pull the stringy bits off (picture above!) and I even keep pulling them off as I go along. It's so annoying! My pinkies are so sore from pulling those strings tight across them, but I can't stop doing it. Men. My husband is always saying something along the lines of, "Oh, can't you just...you know...make that? I mean, it doesn't look hard to do, you could do it pretty easily...right?" And my eyes roll out of my head because, yo, he totally doesn't know what he's talking about. For the record? You do what you gotta do and I'll make you as many rePLACEment mats as you need. See how I did that?