A desk fit for a porch
If a person would just do what they say they will do. Time slips by. Activities amass. Anxiety sets in. Human nature then follows as we brush the daily activities aside and set out dreaming of what tools to fashion for our newly thought of hobby. As the day closes, anxiety begins to flow about all not accomplished.
A new day rises. Our immediate dissatisfaction of incomplete schedules and tasks not started fortunately waned with the moon. The mind sets forth a new schedule for the day, consuming all of yesterday’s tasks that were never started and today’s tasks as well. Anxiety builds.
I was talking with a friend of mine the other day. Our friendship, although close, now correlates its communication with holidays and birthdays. This day was her birthday. In the most compassionate way I could text, I asked her whether she felt like she turned 46 or 28 years of age. I was then going to tell her that I felt like an old man with mental functioning that paralleled a five year old’s.
Before I could type the words into the mobile phone, my friend responds “46 yet 12 years old”
Hmm. I feel like I’m 5 and she feels like she is 12. This would be correct as the woman’s brain is much more mature than any dude out there.
I won’t argue with the above fact, but I will say in defense: maybe the male has two brains, not just one like their female counterparts. With all of the information from the two brains flowing at such a rapid pace, the eloquent message we try to iterate comes across as something lewd and juvenile to the opposite sex.
Shortly after the exchange of texts, my best friend called me.
He asked me how my woodworking was coming along and if I was writing any. I replied that I had a few projects going on in the shop. I told him of an old beam that I was turning into a mantel piece had buried my shop in woodchips and sawdust.
I also told him of the few home renovations I had been working on, and how my truck looked like a bad explosion in Tool World.
As far as writing, I tell him I have thought about the perfect schedule in which to put pen to paper, but I could never find the time to fit that schedule into my daily routine. I told him that when I attended culinary school, there was a chef/instructor that I looked up to. This chef lived with his wife in a small cabin. Every morning, no matter the weather, he would go out on his porch and watch the sunrise. I told my friend that I needed to write as the sun rose, but unfortunately such a task only happens when I’m floating on a boat in the middle of the Pacific. I have a wife and two kids now. It’s been some time since I’ve been able to float.
The following morning was different. I woke up. I grabbed a journal that has been desperately waiting for attention for the past nine months. With the journal in hand, I watched the sun rise. I wish I could say I was satisfied, but a sense of guilt and missed opportunity overrode the sense of satisfaction. Summer is coming to an end, and I waited until this end to take advantage of the great weather and the beautiful sunrise. I did this in a chair with no table around.
This table..there is a bit of a story.
Two cats gifted themselves to our property. With their presence, my wife’s allergies have heightened. The cats napped on the swing. The porch swing was one of those bulky metal frames with a thick fabric seat. It looks country. Not the good kind of country. It looks country and takes up too much space to only have one function. The thread holding the fabric on decided to backstitch while supporting my backside. The swing had run its course. My wife had already mentioned desires of having a table on the porch in lieu of the swing.
I have a cherry desk top whose narrow dimensions would make for a fine porch table. I’ve thought of the base. Something light. Staked legs. Maybe floating top on large sliding dovetails. I’ve researched some old Irish tables and like them quite well. If truth be told, I’ve spent over a week of nights drawing, thinking, researching. I told myself I’d just go out and build it so it could be ready for the weekend. That’s when the week passed. Another weekend is only a few days out.
As I’ve mentioned a time or two in the above sentences, I’m married. Being married, I’ve been blessed with the ability to always have the opposite idea than my spouse has. After building several of the wrong style pieces of furniture for the house, I thought I had stumbled on something that could change mankind for the better.
During the process of taking my wife’s conversations too literal and analyzing every word, I found myself forgetting to tell her what I wanted a certain piece of furniture to look like. It is my strongest belief that since I didn’t mention how I wanted it, my wife chose my very idea and made life easy. Since then, I have noticed over a dozen instances where if I don’t mention a thing, we agree on the idea in my head. If I mention it, idea gets nixed.
So what in the hell happened when I started to silently build the table base and she comes up with this idea of nesting tables, so a table could be for the kids unless we need to expand the table for whatever activity may arise? Nesting tables are a great idea, until you go to use them. I’m not throwing the nesting table idea out the window, I’m just thinking of making it useful. What if the nester has extendable legs? What if you mitered some cherry together to form a chase and then had a smaller cherry leg to run up inside to be doweled through? Two tables for activities at different heights that can be formed into one longer dining table. Ever heard of that acronym “K.I.S.S? Me neither. But if such an acronym existed, I’d take a guess that it meant “Keep it Sophisticated, Sucker!”. Nesting benches with sculpted seats to allow the buttocks a bit of comfort. Should the benches be waterfall? Should they have staked legs? If so, is 16 degrees an appropriate angle? Green wood legs with air dried seat? Yes. Yes to all. Now let’s draw it out, build it, and see if we could have gotten any farther from the plans with the completed bench.
A new day rises. Our immediate dissatisfaction of incomplete schedules and tasks not started fortunately waned with the moon. The mind sets forth a new schedule for the day, consuming all of yesterday’s tasks that were never started and today’s tasks as well. Anxiety builds.
I was talking with a friend of mine the other day. Our friendship, although close, now correlates its communication with holidays and birthdays. This day was her birthday. In the most compassionate way I could text, I asked her whether she felt like she turned 46 or 28 years of age. I was then going to tell her that I felt like an old man with mental functioning that paralleled a five year old’s.
Before I could type the words into the mobile phone, my friend responds “46 yet 12 years old”
Hmm. I feel like I’m 5 and she feels like she is 12. This would be correct as the woman’s brain is much more mature than any dude out there.
I won’t argue with the above fact, but I will say in defense: maybe the male has two brains, not just one like their female counterparts. With all of the information from the two brains flowing at such a rapid pace, the eloquent message we try to iterate comes across as something lewd and juvenile to the opposite sex.
Shortly after the exchange of texts, my best friend called me.
He asked me how my woodworking was coming along and if I was writing any. I replied that I had a few projects going on in the shop. I told him of an old beam that I was turning into a mantel piece had buried my shop in woodchips and sawdust.
I also told him of the few home renovations I had been working on, and how my truck looked like a bad explosion in Tool World. As far as writing, I tell him I have thought about the perfect schedule in which to put pen to paper, but I could never find the time to fit that schedule into my daily routine. I told him that when I attended culinary school, there was a chef/instructor that I looked up to. This chef lived with his wife in a small cabin. Every morning, no matter the weather, he would go out on his porch and watch the sunrise. I told my friend that I needed to write as the sun rose, but unfortunately such a task only happens when I’m floating on a boat in the middle of the Pacific. I have a wife and two kids now. It’s been some time since I’ve been able to float.
The following morning was different. I woke up. I grabbed a journal that has been desperately waiting for attention for the past nine months. With the journal in hand, I watched the sun rise. I wish I could say I was satisfied, but a sense of guilt and missed opportunity overrode the sense of satisfaction. Summer is coming to an end, and I waited until this end to take advantage of the great weather and the beautiful sunrise. I did this in a chair with no table around.
This table..there is a bit of a story.
Two cats gifted themselves to our property. With their presence, my wife’s allergies have heightened. The cats napped on the swing. The porch swing was one of those bulky metal frames with a thick fabric seat. It looks country. Not the good kind of country. It looks country and takes up too much space to only have one function. The thread holding the fabric on decided to backstitch while supporting my backside. The swing had run its course. My wife had already mentioned desires of having a table on the porch in lieu of the swing.
I have a cherry desk top whose narrow dimensions would make for a fine porch table. I’ve thought of the base. Something light. Staked legs. Maybe floating top on large sliding dovetails. I’ve researched some old Irish tables and like them quite well. If truth be told, I’ve spent over a week of nights drawing, thinking, researching. I told myself I’d just go out and build it so it could be ready for the weekend. That’s when the week passed. Another weekend is only a few days out.
As I’ve mentioned a time or two in the above sentences, I’m married. Being married, I’ve been blessed with the ability to always have the opposite idea than my spouse has. After building several of the wrong style pieces of furniture for the house, I thought I had stumbled on something that could change mankind for the better.
During the process of taking my wife’s conversations too literal and analyzing every word, I found myself forgetting to tell her what I wanted a certain piece of furniture to look like. It is my strongest belief that since I didn’t mention how I wanted it, my wife chose my very idea and made life easy. Since then, I have noticed over a dozen instances where if I don’t mention a thing, we agree on the idea in my head. If I mention it, idea gets nixed.
So what in the hell happened when I started to silently build the table base and she comes up with this idea of nesting tables, so a table could be for the kids unless we need to expand the table for whatever activity may arise? Nesting tables are a great idea, until you go to use them. I’m not throwing the nesting table idea out the window, I’m just thinking of making it useful. What if the nester has extendable legs? What if you mitered some cherry together to form a chase and then had a smaller cherry leg to run up inside to be doweled through? Two tables for activities at different heights that can be formed into one longer dining table. Ever heard of that acronym “K.I.S.S? Me neither. But if such an acronym existed, I’d take a guess that it meant “Keep it Sophisticated, Sucker!”. Nesting benches with sculpted seats to allow the buttocks a bit of comfort. Should the benches be waterfall? Should they have staked legs? If so, is 16 degrees an appropriate angle? Green wood legs with air dried seat? Yes. Yes to all. Now let’s draw it out, build it, and see if we could have gotten any farther from the plans with the completed bench.
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