My Life As A Pioneer Woman

Disclaimer: This post is for entertainment purposes. If you are a true homesteading woman, I give you all the respect. You, good lady, are made of stronger stuff than me.

I've been spoiled my entire life by having a home that heats with the turn of a knob. Sure, you have to pay out the wazoo for it, but boy, on a cold night, it's oh so wonderful.

When Sir and I were first together, I looked at the woodstove with longing. It was summer, and I remember feeling excited about the work it involved. The sheer joy I would get from knowing I was going to get the opportunity to chop wood and heat the house with my own two hands. I had spent years romanticizing pioneer life. I was obsessed with it from a young age. I read hundreds of books about it.

*Pause for hysterical crying caused by the jolt of reality smacking you in the face.*

After having used this thing for months, I have come to the realization that it's not the warm and sweet situation I had pictured. Allow me to give you a list of Sparrow's Top Ten Reasons That Woodstoves Suck:

But first, let me go add more wood to the fire.

1. I'm going to just put this right out there. I do NOT have the muscles of a lumberjack. Don't get me wrong, I am strong in many ways, but not in the wood chopping way. When I swing an axe, I barely make a mark in a log. If you had to compare the dents in the wood to the tread on a tire, I would fail inspection every time. I JUST SUCK. My muscles are definitely more suited to pushing a vacuum or kneading dough. Therefore, the job I looked so forward to, I have now deemed as Sir's job. He can have it. I will stick with the lady like jobs.

2. Speaking of axes. Let me axe you a question. (hahahaha, puns) Have you ever wielded an honest to goodness axe for the purpose of murdering a log? If you haven't, then you have no idea of the sheer terror it brings. Every time I lift the thing over my head, I feel like I'm going to sink it into the dog's head or my leg. I have zero control over that thing. I watch in wonder as Sir can bring it down with ease and hit his target like he's a freaking marksman. When I watch the wood split like butter on a hot knife, I'm both amazed and angry at him for being so capable. What a jerk. (love you, Sir!)

3. Ashes. Freaking ashes and dust everywhere. I hope you non woodstove people enjoy only having to dust on occasion. I do that shit almost every day. (I allow myself a break on the weekends...sometimes.) That picture above is a joke. No one that owns one of these things has a house that is impeccably dust and debris free.

4. You know that lovely smell of a summer camp fire? You walk out of the woods feeling refreshed, like you have just had an affair with mother nature. It's calming. When you burn wood in your home for heat, you smell like that all the time. Your hair, your clothes, your skin... everything smells like you are existing in a structure that is constantly on fire. Roast a marshmallow over me an call me toast.

5. Back to the cleaning. (I have ocd, this is a huge thing for me..so just deal) I also have to vacuum every day, sometimes multiple times a day. By some magic of nature, every time you handle a piece of wood, chips fly everywhere and stick in the carpet like tiny little needles just waiting to torture you. That shit doesn't always just vacuum up. Sometimes I have to get on my hands and knees and pull the splinters out one by one, the whole time cursing at the stove.

6. Burns. I have scars. SCARS. My beautiful, delicate hands now look like I smelt metal for a living. It's not just my hands. It's my forearms and wrists as well. If I had a superpower, it would be burning myself. I just hope that someday, scars become a trend..cause I would then be super cool.

7. I should have a degree in medicine, or at least in splinter removal. My fingertips have callouses from all the splinter removal surgeries I have performed on myself. Move over tweezers, I'm gonna need a knitting needle.

8. About 99% of people who say they sell 'seasoned firewood' lie. They lie like they are politicians. Do you have any idea what a chore it is to try to burn wood that is even slightly green? DO YOU?!! (sorry, I'm passionate about this.) It nearly takes an act of God to get it to light and stay lit. You have to stand over it, pray, do a ritualistic dance, and offer a blood sacrifice IN HOPES it will work out. And it wont.

9. I'm not going to lie. There IS something calming about being in a room where you hear the crackling wood and feel the warmth of the stove as you snuggle on a couch. Know what's not so calming? Leaving that room and going into a tile bathroom where the heat doesn't reach and putting your warm tuckus on an ice cold toilet seat. Nope. It's about as fun scraping dog poop off of the bottom of a heavily treaded boot.

10. Set it and forget it. If only. As you turn the knob on your thermostat once a day to get that toasty warmth we all want, I'm up constantly putting more wood on, poking around with an iron rod to stir things up, opening and closing dampers, begging it to just stay lit FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY.

All in all, I'm not ungrateful for the woodstove. I actually do appreciate it for the warmth it gives.

But I will never.... NEVER AGAIN...walk into someone's house who has one and say, "oh, you must love using a woodstove! I've always wanted one! How lucky." I will shake their hands in solidarity as I say, "bet you can't wait till winter is over, huh?"

When Love Escapes You Again and Again

Everyone wants to be loved, to love, to have that relationship with another soul that makes you feel like loneliness is a distant bad dream that will never knock at your door again.

But not everyone is ready for it. Not everyone knows what love really looks like. Too many people just want it NOW and will go to any length to try to wrestle it into submission, only to claim a victory that really isn't a victory at all. Love does not happen overnight. We are no longer young children with a limited depth of understanding of what love entails.

This is going to be an honest post. I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, a love guru. I'm just a human being with flaws like everyone else... but I do know that loving myself first, respecting myself, has put me in a position to love in a very real way and be loved in a very real way.

When you are single, the search for companionship can be come so consuming that it leads to behavior that destroys any possibility of lasting, meaningful relationships. You chase. You present yourself in a way that is not the real you in order to impress another person. You make sacrifices that demean your own values and morals... all for a possibility.

Stop.

Being alone isn't always fun. Sometimes being alone means facing our demons in a way that we don't when we are surrounded by others. It is essential work, though. Taking the time to learn where we are going wrong, what we REALLY want, and learning to be content in our own skin, is all part of building yourself up to be ready to share your heart. Until you do this work, history will repeat itself because you are looking for another person to fulfill that which only you can fulfill.

No one will take you, wonderful you, seriously.. until you can stand up alone, and say for certain that you have your own back.

Someone who is really emotionally ready to settle down does not want to be chased. They don't need that from you. They don't need your validation in order to know that you are the right one for them. They will just know. Chasing someone only makes you look desperate. Desperation causes people to behave in ways that aren't conducive to longevity. It makes us do things that fulfill a want in the present moment. So take a deep breath and know that you don't need to stoop to a level of desperation in order to prove yourself.

It's fun to be fun, but it's not fun to be a play thing. Feel like you are being objectified, sexualized, or that if you don't throw yourself physically at people that you aren't being noticed? Chances are good that you've taught yourself to settle for false affection because you feel it is a better alternative than no affection. The truth in this is that if you willingly offer your body to someone without building an emotional bond, there is no reason for the other person to feel they need to work for you or your love. There is something to be said for waiting. Not only does it show that you value an emotional connection more than a physical one, it shows that you have control over your own self and that in itself is sexy.

Earn trust and wait for another to earn yours. This does not happen quickly. It is the slow passage of time where our behavior speaks for itself in a way that proves that trust has been established. Without this, you are building on a foundation of sand. It will erode quickly with the smallest amount of rain.

Be your own self. Have your own hobbies and interests. No one wants a clone. It is not appealing to meet someone and have them mimic your behavior in order to garner your attention. You not only steal their uniqueness, you send the message that you are also not unique. Two people do not need to be exact replicas in order to work. In fact, a relationship can become quite stale if two people have no space to be different. The saying that opposites attract, can be very true in many ways because it causes an intrigue that might not otherwise be there.

Love is beautiful, there is no doubt. It feels amazing. It feels safe and warm and all of those things that make a person smile inside...

Just remember that loving yourself is the only way to succeed in loving someone else.