The project has begun.

It's begun.

I've started building my project. So far, I've learned how to choose the best lumber, use an electric drill, a miter-saw and glue boards together.

A-ha!

Busted!

Shame on you.

I know darn well that just now, after reading that I was using powertools your anticipation of "ooh, I bet Mandy got hurt somehow. This is going to be funny...." went through your head as you rubbed your greedy hands together with excitement, didn't it?

DIDN'T IT?!?

Jerk.

Anyway, even though you're hoping to read something funny about my demise, I'm currently in possession of all 10 fingers and the total number of times I've drawn blood is ZERO (as of right now).

My mother-in-law was sweet enough to anticipate my blunders she sent me a lovely care package containing safety goggles, gauze and medical tape "just in case."...Hmm, I wonder if I should be offended....

My original plan was to build that bench I told you about. It's a "beginner" project so I figured that would've been perfect to start out with. My friend and I were going to build it together but after fine tuning our plan she backed out when she realized how much work it was going to be. Which is fine, really, it’s okay. I totally hate her now.

I decided to scrap the beginner project and move right into an intermediate project since it'll be a more functional piece. I was able to enlist my husband so I was thinking that even though it's an intermediate project, it'll be a piece of cake with his help since this is totally his thing.

Wrong.

Not a piece of cake.

Night #1: we spend 2 hours at Lowe's (the only home improvement store to shop) getting supplies. He informs me a 1x12 board actually measures at like 1x11¼. WTF!?!? Don't call it a "1x12" if it's not really 12 inches! At this point, I'm pissed at the woodworking industry as a whole and would like to have serious words at the yahoo that decides to call a 1x11¼ board a 1x12. The liar.

We're in the midst of picking out the boards when it hits me that my shelf that's supposed to hold my 12x14 scrapbooks are going to be way too short (see previous paragraph, I'm still too angry to reiterate), so we modify the plans to make the shelves bigger. He tells me we're going to have to MAKE each piece of wood bigger by trimming them and then gluing them together. Uh.....okay......??

We move over to the Handle aisle where it takes me 10 minutes to settle on the handle for the drawer. Who knew this would be such a stressful decision?? It was just too big of a decision for me to make on the spot so I buy 2 different ones so I can decide later.

We then move on to the Stain aisle for another decision I have to make: pick a color. Oh lordy. They don't have the exact color of stain that I’ve manifested in my head so I consider calling the stain company to describe in great detail the color I'd like, but instead I settle on a different color. That night I wake at 4:30 in the morning with the feeling of pending doom- I know the color of stain isn't perfect- I don't even know if I like the color I picked! Ugh. Why couldn't the stain company give me more color variety to choose from- or at the very least ask my opinion?!? Ugh. My life is so difficult exasperated arm over my eyes.

Night #2: he teaches me how to use a miter-saw and table-saw. After 30 minutes of this, I’m bored and ready to suggest that we just go and buy the bookshelf. But because I know that suggestion would cause my husband to blow a gasket and, more irritatingly, cause the words “I told you so” to be spoken, I persevered.

I measure and re-measure to make sure my cuts are perfect. Everything was going along swimmingly. I just finished cutting a board into the three 1x18 pieces I needed when Adam politely asks what size I just cut. I respond, “the 1x18’s.” Silence. “Uh, you were supposed to cut 1x18 ½” Dang it! I measured that stupid wood three times before I cut it into perfectly measured 1x18 pieces so now I've ruined the whole board. We'll need to buy another one.

Night #3: We continuing cutting and gluing pieces together- who knew that they didn’t sell wide pieces of wood, that you had to glue them?? Not me. Had I known, I might not’ve chosen a project where every stinking piece of wood needs to be made bigger than whats sold at a store.

I look around the garage (my building area) and see that we have all the wood built for the drawer/bench part but with one lone piece of wood left, how are we supposed to build the entire bookcase?? Now, I know I ruined one piece but either I was grabbing the wrong pieces of wood each time or we somehow forgot half of our wood at the store. Who knows. All I know is we have a lot of work ahead of us even after we buy more wood (all new wood for said bookcase will also need to be trimmed and glued. Oh joy.)

Three nights and so far we have……wood. Nothing is built. We have glued pieces of wood together to make them the right size and that's it- nothing more.

Seriously. Check back next month because I’ll still be gluing wood and hopefully still brag about keeping all 10 fingers intact.