We just built a house.
It was fucking stressful and I'm glad it's fucking done. I love everything about it right now (even though there are a couple of projects that still need to be done). It's much bigger than our old home. It sits right on the edge of a field with a beautiful view and I have a deck that looks over the woods.
We had to take out a few trees to get the house where we wanted it and that meant I got to buy a maul and have some fun chopping wood. I haven't had any lawn work at all this summer but I know it will be heavy next year. I've kept my sanity and active by chopping firewood for our fireplace this winter. In fact, that's how I spent the weekend where I hit 3,000 days quit.
Splitting firewood is an arduous, monotonous, and tiring task. The wood piles aren't just sitting close to where I want to split and stack. They are a good distance away and I have to load up my wheel barrel, roll it over, and split from there. I've been doing it all summer and have quite the pile built and I'm about ready to tarp it for when the weather changes.
Of course, I had to try to find deeper meaning to the task I was completed...
Quitting is a lot like splitting firewood for the winter. Quit is easy when you're inspired to be quit just like finding firewood when it's dry, warm, and you're just looking for campfire wood for you and some buddies. The worst case scenario is that you go out and spend $5 on a bundle at the gas station. When the weather changes, I just can't wander out looking for good dry wood for my fireplace. It will be all snow covered. It won't be usable. Nope. I have to get it now. I have to prep it now. I have to have a plan or my beautiful fireplace will go unused all winter.
We've often heard that staying active at KTC makes us quit, but why? Why is texting, posting, or just interacting with others in our quit so inspirational to us? Well, it's because every roll call post, every post talking about our quit, every text to another quitter, is another log split and put on the rack for the winter. We have a lot of fun with each other here and we're all in the same boat when it comes to quit. It's great to work along side some great quitters and makes our quits easier each day.
I have a rack of firewood now that I'm probably not going to go through this winter, but who the hell knows really? We never know what the future holds and my shoulder might go out. I may never be able to swing a maul again. I'd rather have that wood lying around for me to use rather than just assuming that it will be there. That's how I've always treated my quit as well. There's times I have to be actively working on gathering firewood, but (3000 days in) there's a lot of time spent using the wood that I've gathered.
In the end, this quit is mine. I wouldn't be here without this place and I wouldn't have the tools to stack up the firewood for winters if it wasn't for KTC.