It's getting hot in here

There is nothing like a rip-roarin' fire when the weather is damp and cold. Hubby and FIL went up to the grandparent's farm in PA yesterday and brought back a truckload of wood from a dead, fallen tree today. I could hardly contain my enthusiasm to start burning it! After the boys were in bed, I got a fire going in the wood-burning stove downstairs, and we lounged around for the rest of the evening. Bliss. I have the tendency to want to micro-manage the fire, though. We have a thermometer on the flue that lets you know what the optimal burning temperature is, and I tend to get a little obsessive about keeping the temperature in a certain range. So every once in a while, when I noticed that the temp on the thermometer was starting to fluctuate, I'd get in there and stoke things up a bit. Hubby finds it all quite amusing. Big, round woman squatted in front of the stove poking at it. Very primeval. And that's just how I like it.