agh! what a mess to get clean! and did I mention that in spite of the rewards I described, a lot of days it is just miserable to get dressed warmly and haul yourself out of the house, knowing that you're going to be freezing & sweating, lugging wood into the house and then back out into the cold for more.

why bother - you may ask. why not just use some kind of low maintenance heat, like propane? where would be the fun in that? what would be the wondrous joys I could list about say, a propane fired boiler pumping hot water through radiators? It's no bother? I don't have to do anything with it?

No. there cannot be great joy in life without great stress, or toil, or sorrow. Everything in our lives which is worth our enjoyment, is also worth its negative counterparts. Whether it is the work & mess associated with a woodstove, or the various stressors associated with having a child... when a burden seems overwhelming, remind yourself what you're doing it for.

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