There’s something magical about putting your feet up and unwinding next to a warm fire.
I don’t recall a time that my parents let me help build a fire. In fact, I only have one memory of them using our fireplace when I was about 5 or 6 years old. My family didn’t camp and I wasn’t allowed to go on camping trips (or any overnight trip) so no camp fire experience either.
After I started my own family, I ended up being married to someone who didn’t know how to build fires either, so I made the fireplaces we had decorative using candles on a candelabra. Except there were a few times, after becoming a single mom that the boys and I got duraflame logs and we thought we were cool being able to light those up. (Those are fun memories.)
Then hubby enters into our life. He splits ‘real’ wood and keeps stacks of it and kindling out back. It never occurred to me that people store and split wood themselves since duraflame logs are always readily available at the grocery store and so conveniently packaged — you don’t even need to unwrap it before you put a flame to it 🙂 Hubby’s way? Mind blowing.
I have told him countless times that he makes THE most beauuuutiful fires. He really does! I love them and I love how often we are able to have them.
Last week, as hubby and I stayed home while I was recovering from surgery, he asked if I wanted a fire. This time, I asked him if I could build it for us. I have watched him build approximately 2,837 fires and I thought that maybe I paid attention enough to be able to do it. Being the gentleman that he is, he didn’t burst out laughing or roll his eyes, he just carried in all of the material I would need and left me to it.
He’d casually glance over now and then to see how I was doing, but I told him not to give me any hints. He slipped only one time, when he saw what I was doing with the kindling and he blurted out “oh Lord”.
So I quickly fixed that and I decided that this would be my design:
It ended up being a roaring and pretty fire and it was fun to be able to do, especially since hubby gave it his approval. In fact, he complimented it so much that I’m afraid I might never build another one again, out of fear that no other fire I could build would please him as much as this one.
But it’s nice to know, that if I wanted to have a fire and he wasn’t around, that I could maybe pull it off.
