Nifty Tricks

One of the things I was really excited about in our apartment was the wood-burning stove in the fireplace. I love the warmth and comfort that comes from a fire and I was so excited about being able to have them in our home, especially since it's still dipping into the low 30's here at night.

Pretty stove.

Well, low and behold, the wood-burning stove is actually fueled by propane and propane is not something that is covered in our rent (we also discovered a handful of other things that weren't covered in our rent which is why we signed a short lease - but! the Lord provides and we are thankful). Since we don't need to use the wood-burning stove to heat the apartment, it has now been reduced to a pretty accessory-piece. Poopy.

God is so funny though and wouldn't ya know it if, right before we moved, one of our Shippensburg Leaders from PA (Hailey) gave us a candle with a wooden wick. I'm sure you've heard of them before. The wooden wicks are designed to "crackle" like a fire.

"Vanilla Dolce," mmmmm.

Well, I'll be darned if that thing doesn't really sound like a little fire! I couldn't believe it! So, in all God's irony, I can place the candle on the wood-burning stove, listen to the "fire" and have the house smell amazing... without paying for a bit of propane. He is so good. Hailey, your gift is seriously just a little bit of heaven for me.

Well, sadly, I realized the other day that the hubs and I misplaced our fire-stick-thing in the move and I had already used my last match. What to do!? I really wanted to light the awesome candle Hailey gave us!

So once upon a time, (getting on to the point of this post) I saw in a Real Simple Magazine (I think) that you could use a piece of spaghetti as a match. I believe the editors were suggesting this as a way to light candles that are in a very tall vase or jar.

Like in this situation.

Light the piece of spaghetti and easily reach the wick at the bottom. Hmmm, it sounded like a good idea so I decided to give it a whirl.

Look how sad he is when he's un-lit  :(

Along with the wood-burning stove, our cooking stove is also fueled by propane so getting fire is not a problem, it was getting fire to the wick that I needed help with which is where the spaghetti should hypothetically come in handy.

It was hard for the camera to pick up the blue flame but you can kinda see the blue streaks if you look really hard.

So, with fettuccine in hand (I didn't want to sacrifice a piece of spaghetti because all we had was wheat and that ranks higher than the white fettuccine in my book so the spaghetti was spared), I stuck one end into the flame.

Again, hard to see the flame but you can see the end of the fettuccine starting to burn orange at the very tip.

It took a little while for the fettuccine to actually keep a flame (as opposed to simply burn) but after a few seconds, it did hold a small flame.

Please excuse the out-of-focus-ness. In my defense, I was trying to light pasta on fire with one hand and take pictures with the other. I should get mad props for not setting the entire apartment ablaze.

The flame doesn't last crazy long so you have to be a little quick about getting it to the wick but, I'll be derned if it worked!

Me. Make. Fire. (grunt, grunt)

Er, sorry there, fettuccine. It was nothing personal.

Yippee! Now I can get back to listening to my "crackling fireplace" and you know that you can use pasta to light objects on fire... use that information at your own discretion ("only you can prevent forest fires").

Crisis averted...

...that was a close one.