“Prest-logs Roasting in a Kuma Fire....”

WOW. The Lord has certainly blessed us of late!

It all started about a month ago, when one of the elders at our church walked up to my brother and told him to start looking for firewood because “we're going to give you a woodstove”! The church was going to pay for the piping and what-not, and he and his sons would install it. And not just any woodstove, mind you—a Kuma! From what I've heard, Kumas are very efficient—they actually burn the smoke!—and keep a place toasty on less wood than other stoves. Mr. F, I should mention, developed them and owns the company, therefore he was able to just give us one. :-D

Cozy....

Last Friday when Peter brought me home, there it was, sitting in the corner of the living room all cozy and home-y. The place looks...I dunno...more complete with a wood stove in it. Guess I'm a country gal after all! ;-) But then, we grew up with woodstoves.

Lemme tell ya, that little stove keeps our house roasty-toasty; in fact, it went from freezing (despite the thermostat being set at 65°F) to almost too hot! But it's all good, as we can now open the windows (or even the door!) in the Winter (when it's not blowing or snowing or raining) and still be toasty-warm! Whoo!

Funny thing about the hearth they put in—apparently it was a discontinued color...one which matches our new countertops and our living room carpet perfectly! Is God in the details, or what?

Mr. F gave us a box of pallet-scraps to burn, and they lasted through Sunday night. Monday morning Mom and I took off in search of more wood, as it got cold very quickly after the fire died down. We bought 25 of those Prest-logs for a buck apiece at a place in Post Falls, and then Mom noticed some pallets in front of a pallet factory a little ways down the road. The pallets she saw weren't for sale, but the friendly forklift operator we talked to (the owner was off that day) pulled out a big metal bin on wheels from under one of their cutting machines, all full of trimmings, and said we could take whatever we wanted! So now we have enough to get us at least through the next week, maybe two. PTL! Hopefully there isn't much more cold weather left, anyway.

This stove has been such a blessing already—I'd forgotten what it was like to be warm—actually warm, not just tolerable un-cold, if you follow me. :-P It's meant some adjustments to our routine, sure, but it's worth it. And the best part? At present, I'm wearing a cotton blouse and NO SOCKS! and I'm not the least bit cold! Hurrah for Bare Feet!

Speaking of clothes, here are the promised photos of the alterations I made to “Jubilee” last week:

Underarm/side seam gusset

Second Underarm gusset--much smaller. Don't know how that happened!

Shoulder extension

I had to mark where the seams are because this fabric eats them alive! A good thing, too, as that'll help keep it from looking slap-dash. :-P

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do anything more on it, as I found out I needed a zipper that wasn't black, purple, aqua or lime green! Those were the only invisible zippers we had, and while the whole purpose of an invisible zip is not to be seen, I still felt a blue zipper would be best with a blue dress. So Thursday Mom and I went out to Wal*Mart in search of one—no dice. But on the way home, Mom “just had a feeling” we should pop into the Hospice thrift store where I volunteer...and there, in the zipper-box in the fabric area, was a blue invisible zipper! A bit longer than I really need, but I wasn't going to kick a gift-bear in the mouth*...especially since the sale for that day was sewing notions 25% off. :-D Is that a God thing, or what?

...but I'm always nervous about putting in zippers (shoot, I'm nervous about the whole process!), so I've kinda put it off. Bad Tom! And then Mom and I ended up going to CdA today, so needless to say I didn't get any sewing done today, either. 

* Kick a gift-bear in the mouth: Complain about something received or purchased that was obtained through somewhat miraculous circumstances.

Reference: Taken from a line of the F Troop episode, “Too Many Cooks Spoil the Troop,” where Captain Wilton Parmenter, in frustration with a rank-pulling situation, kicks the bearskin rug given him by Chief Wild Eagle of the Hikawi Indians, and gets his foot stuck in its mouth. While helping him to extract his foot, Corporal Randolf Agarn remarks, “There's an old Hikawi saying: Never kick a gift-bear in the mouth.”

The phrase was then turned into a family saying in the early 2000s.

~Tom's Dictionary of Whacked-out Terms and Old Family Sayings

I did, however, snag this loverly letter-knife at an estate sale/antique store in Hayden. They'd lost their lease and had to get everything out of the store by March 15^th. Now, the Lord has put a nice wad of cash in my purse of late, and I've been needing a letter-knife (left mine in California! D'oh!), so I bravely asked the nice lady how much she wanted for this one. Quoth she, “How about fifty cents?” Sold! (And here I was, fully expecting to pay ten or twenty bucks!) The knife is the same on both sides and quite beautiful. I don't know what the symbol on the handle is, but I figure I can always epoxy a nice metal stamping over it—I'm thinking a rose-blossom to match the tiny ones in the handle. ;-)

Quotes of the Week:

Peter: (regarding the cheesy patch-job on Mom's bedroom sub-floor): “Well, this is bonkers sauce.”

(During a family discussion about some nasty shrew lady who chewed Mom out on the telephone...)

Mom: I've half a mind to call her back....

Peter: Don't call her back. Don't feed the Trolls.

Leave it to my brother to lighten up a tense situation! <3

Until next time, Gentle Readers (when hopefully I'll have made better use of my time),

God bless,

~“Tom”~