Living with Jessica

TRIAL #1:
I may have mentioned once before that taking me on a trip to Target is never a good idea. Inevitably, I walk away from the store having spent way more money than I intended. At this point in our relationship, I'm pretty sure Tyler equates Target with being in debt, but I can't help it. There are so many wonderful things to find!

On one of my expeditions, several months back, I found a beauuuuutiful green table lamp that was on sale for $15!!! It's emerald exterior and smooth glass finish caught my eye right away, and who can ignore a bold red price tag that screams, "I cost much less than I used to!!" What kind of person would pass that up?!

Exactly this shape, but a pretty green color!

Obviously, not me.

Now, I admit. On most occasions to Target, I do remind myself that I have a significant other with whom I share my living space, and I resign myself to the fact that if I get home and he doesn't like it, I can always make a return. But, I knew this was NOT about to happen with my new lamp. Whether Tyler liked it or not, I was keeping it...even if that meant hiding it in the closet until I could sneak it past him.

Thank God, Tyler had enough sense to like it. It wasn't his favorite item, but he recognized the crazy in my eye that night and allowed it to stay. The one, singular "problem" with the lamp - and I really hate the word problem, challenge might be more appropriate - was that it did not have a lamp shade. Personally, I didn't mind, but after a week or two it made Tyler go crazy, and on a subsequent trip to Ikea, he very thoughtfully bought a shade for the lamp's naked top. Although a thoughtful move, I will confess that my first thought about the shade was, "It looks like someone urinated on that".

The flash washed out the image. Trust me.

TRIAL #2:
Unfortunately, as it happens sometimes, my filter didn't kick in and I shared that comment with Tyler. I'm a big believer in honesty makes a relationship stronger, but this urine comment wasn't my proudest moment.

In my defense, the shade is definitely pee-colored yellow, and after a few weeks, Tyler thankfully came to the same conclusion. Since then, I've fervidly been searching for a replacement, and have brought home multiple shades varying in size, shape, and pattern. This past weekend, on a trip with some of my students to Target (duh!), I hit the jackpot. This time, I remained optimistically hopeful, crossing my fingers that Tyler would like it and I wouldn't have to make a return.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the shade fit perfectly, AND Tyler liked it! I had struck gold.

Source

To be frank, Tyler and I both won that night. He finally convinced me to move the lamp from the living room to our home office. He had mentioned a time or two that the lamp looked odd floating in the middle of our living room, and finally, I had to admit that the teardrop shape of the base, while gorgeous, did seem strange. The lamp needed some sort of backdrop to highlight it's curves. The table against the wall in our office turned out to be the perfect spot.

P.S. Besides my spending habits at Target and my inconsistent filter, I'm pretty much the perfect girlfriend. =)

Joke.

P.P.P.S. My first thought post-lamp transfer was, "I get to buy a new one for the living room!!!"

No joke.

Finally, Fun.

At some point during my staining fiasco, I also realized that the support beams, or the "legs" of the headboard, were too long and needed trimming. Really? Really! If left unattended, the headboard was going to overlap with the lovely painting already resting above our bed.

Considering that I had already assembled the headboard, I knew lugging it to the chop-saw at school would be near impossible and definitely impractical. Hand-sawing was my only option. Fortunately, what appeared to be another irritating situation turned into a fun.

Tyler, whose had some experience with a hand saw, instructed me to hold the blade lightly, making sure to use the length of the blade as I saw. His advice was duly noted, for I discovered when I did the opposite, I was not making as much progress.  

Getting to this point with the first leg...

definitely caused me to work up a sweat, and I realized the potential for getting in a really good arm workout with the second (or so I convinced myself). Being semi-nerdy, I decided to not only challenge myself physically, but find a cool way of calculating how fast I could take down the second leg. Any old stopwatch just wasn't going to cut it. My answer was Guster.

To those of you unfamiliar with "Guster", it is the name of an alternative rock band who became quite popular in the late '90s. I don't believe I actually started listening to them until quite a bit later, maybe college, but I quickly became addicted to their song entitled, "Demons". So, as I approached my second leg, I queued up a few Guster classics to play as I went to work.

My progress went as follows:

Great Escape, 3:06

Happier, 3:49 

Yes! Over halfway there!

Amsterdam, 3:39

Almost!

Demons, 4:28

So close!!!

After "Amsterdam" ended, I was convinced that I would be able to finish with only one more song. Alas, "Demons" proved to be 30 seconds too short, or my arm muscles proved to be too puny - depends on how you want to look at it. Nonetheless, in about 16 minutes, I had completed my mission, and the headboard was finally ready to be attached to our bedframe.

Getting High

No, Dad. Calm down. I did not do drugs, but I did stain a large piece of wood (Minwax Dark Walnut), and in the process, probably killed a few hundred brain cells.

For some crazy reason, when I decided that I was going to complete the headboard project in the apartment, I figured that staining the wood indoors would be fine. I thought to myself, "The stain will only be on the wood for about 15 minutes before I wipe it off. That's not too long. I'll just stay in the other room and the high ceilings will take care of the smell."

Of course, my logic was flawed. Just because I had wiped off the excess stain did not mean that the stain soaking into the wood would dry immediately. It also did not guarantee that the smell wouldn't permeate the room, fill my nostrils, and give me a headache.

Lesson learned. Stain OUTDOORS.

Unfortunately, the hits did not stop coming. Although applying the stain to the front face of the headboard was easy, covering the sides and the legs was not. As it stood, I couldn't safely reach all of the crevices on the underside of the headboard due to their proximity to our pretty bamboo floors.

In order to accomplish that, I would have to flip over the headboard, and given that I had to wait for the front to dry, I figured I might as well also wait for the pungent smell to disappear before further enhancing its potency. Little did I know, this would take twenty-four hours. ERGH. The unexpected time lapse killed me, and to be frank, as I recall the experience, it simply makes me want to stop talking about it.

It was tedious and painful, and therefore, I'm going to save both you and I from reliving my mistery. Yes, it was THAT bad, which brings me to my final lesson of the day. Stain BEFORE assembly. If I could go back in time and do it, I would.