red things make me happy

I haven't blogged in a while, I have been busy, and I am not really all that exciting of a person. I have had a lot of cute kid stories, such as when Billy got sick and described a headache as little people having a cake fight in his head, and when I told him that eventually they would run out of cake, he informed me that their cake was infinite. Anybody who has met him knows that I am not making this up. He then went on to tell me that his brain looked like space and the Marines were there and they were going to explode Pluto.

There is also Katie who has taken up trumpet, and we make her practice it in the closet. I told someone about this and they were aghast, and I said, "It's really okay, we put a light in there."

Anything else that has gone on would qualify as everything and nothing. Billy turned 5, Victor got married, studying, cooking, cleaning, playing, etc. Pretty status quo, just happy to get to wake up every morning to do it.

So what could any of this have to do with a picture of a table? Nothing. Except that I built it. From an idea in my head, I bought wood, and used tools that I had never used before and I made it real. I have never built anything. I have refinished lots of furniture, and I love doing it, taking something that looks like it has outlived its usefulness and making it beautiful again. Even more than that, I love the actual job, the stripping, and endless sanding, the smell of wood, being in the garage doing something with the kids playing out front.

Maybe what I like, in either case, is the fact that I did it. I messed this table up in every way that I could, I probably built it 3 times before I got it right, but there it is. It is a small accomplishment, I know, but I like seeing my kids put their feet up on it, far more than if I had bought it at Ethan Allen, and it looks great in the living room with my giant ugly couch. So my extremly heavy, big red, nowhere near perfect, coffee table is now my favorite piece of furniture in my house.