Oh Noooo!

Busy…Busy…Bus—STOP!

I was truly in crisis mode. As it turned out I couldn’t even move the box with the bookshelf, much less assemble it. It got heavier in the five years it sat in storage! So, David took over the assembly today after breakfast. He got the support base or one side done and was ready to attach the other side when *SNAP* *BOOM* The side he was assembling slid and cracked two of the base levels on the other side and one of the shelves. I jumped, as much as I can jump. Nothing fell on him, it just fell on itself.

He released some expletives at it in his boomy voice. Scrap wood. That’s what he called it. He wants no more assemble-it-yourself stuff.

“But it’s more expensive,” I protested.

“And better quality,” he countered.

I couldn’t deny that. I remembered the comparison between the black lacquer entertainment center and the assemble-it-yourself bookcase I bought and put together in my old living room. The entertainment center was FURNITURE. The bookshelves were someplace to put books. So I looked at the selections online for a local store of a chain furniture stores.

Wowsers! I selected and added up the cost of all of the items I was planning to get from IKEA, minus the kitchen cart, which I may get getting from Amazon. The total is THREE TIMES the total at IKEA with the kitchen cart!

Then was crisis time. The gloom was setting in. I was looking at my major project and my dream for an organized and accessible home stop dead in its tracks. There is no way I can even dream of affording all good furniture and it’s not necessary to have “good” furniture. I don’t care about “House Beautiful,” I just want “Home Comfortable.” The price assembly obstacles meant that the “woman cave,” or craft room if you prefer, would be towers of cardboard boxes and I’d still need new cardboard boxes.

Oh gloom. Oh despair.

Then the phone rings, Pop’s ring. Pop asked how things were and I told him “great except we had a bookshelf collapse in assembly and it’s broken.”

You see, David and I are both professional people by trade and training. Pop is the former king of his construction empire. I didn’t think he’d have time to help with all that assembly and honestly, it’s so far beneath his skills and now the first part was broken.

I explained what happened; he said he could probably fix it. He’s going to give me a call this week when he gets his work schedule for next week and come down to fix and put together the bookcase on his day off. He also said he’ll come down and help assemble the other furniture when we get it. We’re going to “leave it to the retired professionals.”

I told Pop that when he comes over to fix the bookcase, I’ll pull out a container of my minestrone from the freezer and we can have it for lunch so he can try my minestrone. I could hear the smile in his voice. Smile from me too. I want an honest critique of it! I’ll go to Panera the day before and get a baguette to go with it. We don’t live together anymore and I’m a married lady now, but my Pop is still looking out for his Little Princess!

In the mean time, annex stops for a week and a half and I start the boxes in the eventual woman cave tomorrow!


Breakfast at Uncle John’s Pancake House was wonderful this morning! I’ll tell more about it tomorrow because, YAY, I got a new mug!

Now, after a late lunch, it’s scrapping time, then comes a late dinner. Ah, weekends!