Siding, Sandpaper and Pampers

To start with, I have a partially filled bladder, but I ignore it to run into the garage to finish building a shelf before my 7 month old wakes up. It's 11pm and it's my only chance. So I start measuring twice and drilling once (I sawed the pieces earlier during the Lakers play-off game, which was not a happy decision for my husband since he had to deal with two tired kids in my absence.) and rigging different stacks of wood, newspaper and cardboard to create the invisible partner needed to hold the two pieces of wood perpendicular so I could screw them together. Whew! Hard to believe I was sweating, but I was! You really do burn calories doing woodworking!

So anyway, during my earlier cuts, I realized that my brain had let me down at Lowes and I'd calculated 14.5 inches to go into 48 inches 4 times. Oops! So I had to improvise with some of my own wood scraps. There was that warped plywood behind the bikes and why is it even still in the garage and of course, I have a hundred tomato stakes but neither was what I needed. And then I saw them, nestled behind the tree of tomato stakes were two planks of gray siding that I kept from my childhood home when I was helping my dad clean out his garage. Yep, I'm a sentimental pack rat. Case in point, just earlier this evening, I refused to let my husband dispose of two chairs that are too dangerous to sit in because of loose legs, but I couldn't let them go because my nephew colored on the seat of one of them when he was a toddler (He's 12 now.).

So the siding from the house my parents lived in for 43 years would be the top shelf of my little project. That's kind of neat. Next, I was rummaging through the stack of sandpaper I'd inherited from my maternal grandpa and smiled when I saw his handwriting on some typing paper with the words, "sanding sponge." He was incredibly organized and I often find myself labeling various things with masking tape just as he did or reorganizing a closet so that it is at its highest level of functioning. So there I was, full of nostalgia and kneeling on a Pampers box for cushion against the garage floor and still needing to go to the bathroom. It was now 12:13am. I worked and thought about my dad and grandpa at every bead of sweat and change of the bit. Slow, steady, and with patience; this is how I learned to work in the garage. And as I finished, I felt pretty confident that they would have been proud of my work. My little shelf unit would have gotten the "well built" comment, which is all I could ask for! I hope that I am carrying on their traditions in the workshop and that my grandfather is watching from heaven with his critical eye and "hmph"-ing in approval. He's also probably a little confused at the use of the Pampers box.