Monday Night and All is Swell

So . . .I had a three-day weekend this weekend and I didn't have to go to work today! It's been really nice.

But, true to form, I didn't take the entire weekend off. Saturday, I spent most of the day emptying my parents' garage of stuff. It was so full of crap that you literally couldn't walk around in there! Now, at least, it's organized! We took everything out of the garage, covered it with tarps overnight, then sorted through crap to throw away, stuff to give away, and stuff to keep. We then took the stuff to keep and put it back in the garage, careful to give each "category" a space. The thing we can't get around, though, is that the garage is very small, and even the stuff we need to keep takes up most of the space. Organizing the garage, though, will be an on-going project. Here's my to-do list for the garage:

Stage 1:
1) Fix the broken chairs that are still taking up precious space in the garage.
(I called "Woodcraft" today and they have a special glue I can use that will be sure to keep the legs together)(I'll probably be able to do that next weekend)

2) Call Hazardous Waste to get rid of all the old enamels, paint, and cleaning products that have been sitting in the garage for who knows how long.

Stage 2:

3) Someday, get someone with a truck to come help my dad and I get rid of all the old wood in the garage -- at least the stuff we can't use

Stage 3:
4) Get to organizing the garage and giving everything its own space. (That's a "this summer when I have more time" project.)

Adventures in Refinishing

So, I was getting really frustrated trying to strip the top of this French nightstand. It seemed like all I was doing was redistributing the brown paint so it smeared all over the place! Well, today I spoke with Fairy about it, and she informed me that I was doing it all wrong! THANK GOODNESS! I would never finish the project if progress continued like it had been going!

So, here is my plan:

A) Tomorrow after work, I will go by and pick up a brush on stripper, a plastic putty knife (not too abrasive!), some cleaning rags (nobody told me I needed those!), and a better face mask. (The one I have isn't working. I can tell because I still feel really funny if I accidentally get a whiff of the stripper stuff. I don't want to compromise any more brain cells for this project, so I'll buy one of the fancy face masks tomorrow.)

B) Try it again This time, I will cover one very deliberate portion of the table at a time, cover it with aluminum foil so it doesn't evaporate as fast, leave it for 25-30 minutes, and then just scrape all the stuff right off one end. . .no brushing or just mixing the paint around like I have been doing. Hopefully, that will make the job much quicker and less frustrating!!

THE END OF MY SWEETS

The biggest challenge to my eating healthy is my addiction to sweets! Today, I officially gave up sweets! And I did it! That's awesome!

And . . .I can't believe I'm telling you this . . .at the urging of some friends, I signed up for a month of "Eharmony.com" yesterday. That's kind of funny considering my commitment to the MFZ, but, honestly, I don't feel like it goes against it. Except in one sense: the MFZ thing was sort of giddy and sort of fun for a while, but now it's just kind of lonely. . .to an extent. I really enjoy treating everyone as a friend and letting men take the initiative. (I'm done taking initiative. It doesn't work.) I like getting to know people for who they are, and, if I do end up meeting anyone through this eharmony process, that's the way I will treat them too. I don't know how many of them will be okay with that, but that's the way it has to be. I'm not going on the stupid dating roller coaster anymore! And that simply means we have to be friends first . . .and that he has to take the initiative.

So, anyway, that's about it . . .

WAIT, no it's not!

I went to Woodcraft yesterday to see Mr. Rudkin and to sign up for some classes. I signed up for a)a craft on how to work with Crown moulding. In the class, you build a little crown moulding shelf. It's nothing fancy, but at least you get to learn how to do it from scratch!

I also signed up for a class in April about how to use a table saw. According to Mr. Rudkin, there are a lot of people who have lost fingers from safety mistakes with table saws. He encouraged me to take the class so I could learn safety techniques. I'm taking the class for that reason and also just so I can see how they work and get more familiar with them. If I am going to (and I'm not saying I will!) blow 250 bucks on a table saw, I better know that I really want it.

What is SO COOL is that there are also classes that teach you how to make such cool things as end tables and chairs for your dining room table. I hope to take those when they come up. Unfortunately, I'm afraid they may be really expensive. We're just going to have to take those classes on a case-by-case basis and see what's possible at the time.

That's enough! Have a good night!

Elisabeth