Heating and cooling

When DH and I lived in Oklahoma, the house we bought had a wood stove for primary heat. Oh, it had HVAC, but the previous owners mainly used the wood stove to heat the house during the winter. The stove was piped directly into a brick chimney for venting.

It was mule's backside ugly and you couldn't see the fire, but it did a good job. It looked kind of like this, only uglier:

The first winter we lived there, DH learned to be a master fire-builder and we luxuriated in the even heat. That is, until the chimney fire...a long and arduous story. So we went back to HVAC for the rest of that winter. PSA: Folks, clean those chimneys regularly and PROPERLY to avoid chimney fires. (And yes, they do sound like a 747 roaring by overhead.)

The next winter, after having the chimney inspected by a chimney sweep, we relined the chimney with Class 2 pipe per his recommendation. We did it ourselves and a video of our installation process would be worthy of "America's Funniest Videos." And once again, we were in business and enjoying the even heat.

After one winter (albeit a south central Texas winter) of heating our house with space heaters, and facing yet another winter of going the space heater route as our new HVAC system is not yet installed, I began to yearn for that old ugly wood stove in Oklahoma. DH, ever the closet pyromaniac, was also missing it. So we decided to get one and it will be our primary source of heat.

I went to the one fireplace store here in town to research what was available locally and was unimpressed and my tightwad self was shocked. Then I spent about a day online doing more research. There have been a lot of advances in wood burning stove technology in recent years; modern stoves burn a lot cleaner and more efficiently. Al Gore would be so proud. (Said with my tongue buried very firmly in my cheek.)

We ended up buying a stove from Northline Express, an online store out of Michigan that specializes in all things fire-related. The new stove is very energy efficient and qualifies us for a green tax rebate! We should get it between Christmas and New Year's and DH should be able to install it very quickly. It looks like this:

Our land is very wooded and DH loves to use his chain saw, so finding wood to burn should not be a problem. And there are always neighbors with downed trees who would love someone to come out, cut up, and haul away said tree.

On the stitching front, I am moving along nicely on the March boot. I'll post a picture tomorrow or Friday when hopefully the sun will come back out and I can get a good picture. I feel like a mushroom as the sun hasn't been out much in the last five days. Gloomy, grismal, damp, and cheerless.

I'm 99% done with my Christmas shopping. Why is it that Christmas shopping always falls to the wife? I do make DH wrap everything. I figure if I bag it, he can dress it.

Back when he was single, DH used to go Christmas shopping for his family a day or two before Christmas and have the store wrap the presents. Tightwads do not do such frivolous things; we shop or make presents year-round!