being handy

My father came to visit after Christmas and I took the opportunity to do several things:
1. Hear stories about my father from his sisters (He kept making Barbie have sex in my dream house. I was so mad I ripped his fingernail off.)
2. Wash my car (because apparently seven months is too long to go without washing your car).
and
3. Go shopping for furniture.

The furniture shopping had to happen for two reasons: because I am not strong enough to carry furniture to my car by myself and because I am too poor to actually afford furniture. The latter was why we ended up at IKEA. And I now have a bed, a table and two chairs. Awesome.




(IKEA dad, (anonymity protected by pigeon))



Now, I told a friend my father came to visit and he left me with a load of unfinished IKEA furniture and a rather suspicious electric sander he said "wow. your dad must really hate you." Not so! This is quality unfinished furniture! And Dad bought me all the tools I'll need to make it quality finished furniture. It was halfway through the Lowes shopping trip that I realized what guys spend the majority of their money on: crap from Lowes. Had I been there alone, I would have purchased some stain, some sand paper, and some of the clear stuff to put on it when it's done. And I would have had to ask what the clear stuff was. But with my father in tow I came home with the electric sander, two kinds of sand paper, stain, clear stuff, normal brushes, foam brushes, staining pads, a tack cloth (tack cloth?), a drop cloth and cleaning stuff (what, we're not just throwing it away when we're done?). So, for the next week I am going to chronicle "The Staining of The Furniture", in an attempt to motivate myself to actually walk to the balcony, open the door, sit down and stain the furniture. If this doesn't bring the readers in, I don't know what will.