Oh, What a Night

Let me tell you what sucks. The heater deciding to crap out in the middle of the night is what sucks. 2 am, I woke to nurse the baby and thought it was a tad chilly. I bumped the thermostat up a couple notches and heard a distinctive noise from the heater, kind of a "tick tick tick, pbthhhh.... clunk."
Crap.
I messed with the reset button the way our landlord described, and got it to kick on again, followed by "tick,tick, tick, pbthhhh.... CLUNK."
Double Crap.

Know what else kind of sucks? Trying to go outside at night, collect firewood, get it in the house, and start a fire at 2 am.
Mental note to self: regardless of intention to set fire, always make sure the supplies are inside. It was bad enough at 35 degrees, do NOT want to gather firewood at -40F.

Well, for some reason or another, my fire didn't want to catch very well, and when it did, I had to shut the door to the wood stove so I could tend to Madderbeans, who had been woken up by the screech of the smoke alarm, and my swearing. By the time I got her settled and got the fire started again, it was 3:30. I contemplated making coffee and getting up. I did pause for a moment outside to listen to the squirrels and birds beginning thier morning chatter, and a few dogs barking at the 3:30 sunrise, but decded to crawl back into bed for another couple hours nap.

Woke this morning to a beautiful day that will be more appreciated after I get a nap. The house was chilly since my fire went out, and OH THE IRONY- I messed with that reset button again this morning and the heat worked perfectly. *sigh*

I will welcome ANY and ALL comments on how to get my wood stove to light, stay lit, and warm the house. It's an OLD (probbaly 70s or 80s model) Blaze King. I googled the instruction manual and that helped some, but still having problems with the floowing:
-Starting fire without setting off smoke detectors
-Keeping fire lit after closing stove door
-Getting the stove into the "burn zone" according to our nifty little magnetic thermometer. Keeps saying we are in the "creosote" zone, no matter how much fire I manage to produce.

Hopefully someone in cyberland can help me. Meanwhile, I am going to start drinking copious amounts of caffiene and put in a call to the landlord about the heater. Is it nap time yet???