A True Reward

 What says Christmas more than driving out into the woods to buck some wood for the household?! Nothing, that's what! Well, the weather was the opposite of a typical winter's day. It was sunny and crisp, no snow and no rain! It was seriously perfect.
 
 We had some friends over last night to celebrate Christmas coming and for an excuse to get together. It was fun and we had some drinks. I didn't wake up hung over but I was a bit parched and slow to get out of bed. Alina's Auntie Erin is in town for the holidays and she decided to take her for the day. Rob informed me that this was our last chance before Christmas that we had to get some wood because we were running dangerously low.

 I grudgingly agreed to go with him. I know it's a lot of work, and doing it alone is not an option. He lured me into it with the promise of Tim Horton's for breakfast. (You can pretty much convince me to do anything with the treat of Timmy's.) I wasn't so sure that things would go well. Rob and I are great friends, we've built this life together and we for the most part, get along great. However, when we are doing actual physical activities such as gathering and chopping wood, we tend to butt heads a little bit. We ended up getting along great this time around. Either I got nicer or we've both just grown into this couple that can contently spend the entire day together searching for, bucking, loading, chopping and piling wood.

 One thing I noticed was how different men and women are. The entire time I was full of questions..

"Where are we going?"

"How much further?"

"Do you want me to stand over there or help you?"

 Rob was obviously his very focused self. He would patiently answer my questions and never once did he get annoyed. I love him for that. 

 Weeks ago, he went with a friend to do exactly what we did. There was a way better selection there when they went and it was a pretty quick process. The logs of wood are so heavy and at one point, Rob picked one up and threw it closer to the truck. I actually yelled to him, "You're so strong!" Then I burst into giggles. What a girl thing to say. "Good job honey, you're so strong.." I am betting his friend never uttered those words when they went together. Girls are so encouraging. 

 Girls just want to communicate, that's all. I like to know where I'm going, when I'm going to get there and once we're there, what the game plan is. Boys, well they're much simpler. Man chop wood. Man build fire. Man warm, keep woman warm. Basically.

 Overall, it was a very positive experience. The weather has been the total shits lately with crazy winds and downpours of rain all day and all night long. It was so nice to be outside and in the sun at this time of year. While Rob was finishing the last log, he left me a little surprise engraved in the wood. Awww, it's like that one time when he gave me that token for no reason.. I'm a sucker for those little cute affectionate gestures.

  I'm not even done! We got home and we had His and Hers blocks of wood to chop on, so that we could both chop at the same time. Once we were finished we piled it all for the cold days to come. There is nothing more rewarding than providing warmth for your house, with wood that you went out and gathered and chopped yourself!

 Guess what I'm doing right now... 

... just enjoying some of my hard work.

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