This is a picture of our old Home Comfort wood stove.  It served us for many years.  Prior this one we had another Home Comfort that we used, it was our first wood stove but when we sold our farm house that we were living in at the time the buyers made that part of the deal so we eventually found this one in the picture.  I love antiques but I have never paid antique prices for what we have collected.  I have been patient in obtaining them at a good and sometimes free price or I have been very creative with them.   Often the "treasures" we have found have been others eye soars and sometimes they were an eye soar for everyone but creativity does a lot.  I do have more detail about some of the items in my kitchen on my web site http://plainandsimplysaid.com/  Just a quick note, there is nothing for sale on my site.  My family just wanted a site for fun, fellowship and encouragement, I just want you to know I'm not pushing to sell you something.  But it is in the early stages so if you stop by to today and enjoy it, come back in a couple weeks as we hope to be adding to it regularly.

Anyways for years my old Home Comfort was something I was fond of.  However she was very demanding and I mean very, for full time use anyways.  She also was the main source of our heat for our home and much of my cooking.  Often times on cold nights if we wanted warmth when crawling out of bed in the morning you had to tend her a few times through the night.  She was not an air tight stove. My husband started working some crazy hours last year and this winter he suggested that we consider an air tight as he wasn't always able to tend it through the night and he didn't want me or the children to have to worry about it.  The new one is something you don't have to tend through the night.  The fire box is 3 times the size as our Home Comfort and she keeps burning for several hours and burns a hole lot less wood.  However here was the kicker, we had never spent so much on something for our home in our lives but the only way I could justify it was the wood stove is our "furnace" and if we had a conventional furnace and it needed replaced I would do it.  I was very attached to my Home Comfort and afraid we'd spend all this money and be unhappy with the new stove.

I was surprised when we got it though and that how shabby it made my Home Comfort look.  It looked everyone of its 79 years. It kind of scared me because I'm not one who feeds the lust of the eyes and at that moment I started to see other things in my home as shabby.  How quickly that attitude can crop in  and very scary if its not one you often allow to be entertained.  It brought a living lesson how we can be totally satisfied with something but when we start comparing apples to oranges all of a sudden the very things that we appreciated and held in high regards can dissatisfy us.  It wasn't just the stove I found all of a sudden it was stretching to other things around my home that I thought could be replaced.   Some things in life become necessary to replace over the years but we need to be careful to still be content with God's provision.  Discontent can creep in unaware.  God is faithful and I didn't go through that period longs but it was a good wake up call and reminder that the lust of the things of this world are just waiting to find an open door to creep into.

We came to the decision that my husband is eventually going to convert the old stove to gas for us.  Because despite her 79 years and the look of age, she is still beautiful, at least to my family.  That brown lump there is one of our dogs sleeping.  The heat is like a magnet that just draws them to it.  Its quite funny.