By gabriana on March 5, 2016 ( 6 Comments )

Do you own an axe?

Julie measuring our fireplace

Our friend Julie the chimney goddess stopped by this afternoon. We met her almost by a fluke; her company had the best deal on a chimney inspection when we moved into our home in Santa Rosa 1½ years ago. She came back to do some chimney repairs after we moved in and we became fast friends. Within minutes, it’s clear that Julie has a huge heart and a quick and hilarious tongue. We’ve since had Julie and her intelligent and beautiful daughters over for dinner and had a wonderful time!

Anyway, Julie came by our house this afternoon to analyze my fire-building skills because our living room kept filling with smoke. Yep, that’s right. She came to watch me build a fire. Let that really sink in for you.

So it turns out part of the problem is that our wood is too big and our kindling too small. We needed something in the middle. Like the goldilocks of firewood.

“Do you own an axe?” Julie asks, in all seriousness.

I started laughing so hard I couldn’t speak.

“So that means no?” Julie asks.

Tears are rolling down my face at this point. I’m laughing so hard my chest hurts. This is the hardest I’ve laughed over anything in quite a while.

Gasping for air, I tell her: “Oh Julie, you are so my #OneGoodThing today! Thank you!”

Day 65 of 366.

P.S. Now, I’m sure plenty of people own axes. The Nosy Parker family is not among them. We have basic tools, but no axe. The idea of us owning an axe was ludicrous. You know, in case you didn’t get that by my uncontrollable laughter.