A strong woman's skills...

As summer 2009 rolled around and I turned up single in the sunshine, I spotted this spine bookshelf in one of Brittanie's home furnishing catalogs she still subscribed us to after she moved out. I was enamored with its simplicity and, feeling industrious, I ripped it from the pages and pinned it to my wall, vowing to build this bookshelf as a symbol of my independence and ability to do things on my own. I had oodles of time on my hands now, and what better way to spend it than creating something.

I spent a couple weeks trying to find how-to instructions on the internet and Finally stumbled upon an HGTV special. The instructions called for little more than three planks of wood and a router. Step One: figure out what a router is. Step Two: locate a router and someone who could kindly explain to me how to use it. Step Three: build, rejuvenate and move on with my life. Simple, right?

As does often happen with impulsive strokes of creativity, I got distracted for about a month. Then I bought my wood and located a mentor. My sister's father-in-law had a woodshop and a keen eye for building. Any Sunday would do.

Sundays sure are hard to find the motivation to do much else than go to church and sleep/eat the afternoon away so in no time I found myself in August with three planks of wood and no bookshelf.

Enter a new boy (friend boy, not boyfriend), random friend of a friend (friend of the ex-boyfriend's ex-girlfriend's ex-boyfriend to be exact) who happens to not only be handy with woodworking and building in general, but also has the key and rights to the BYU building lab hidden away in the Nichols building (often mistaken for the older, less attractive wing of the Bensen). He builds things for cooky professors all the time and BYU pays him for it. Lucky me.

So off we go to the BYU professor's manufacturing lab where they've got more machinery than anyone would know what to do with and he sets to work explaining the intricacies of building. I demand that he can't do it for me, that I have to do it myself. He obliges, nicely. Well, I suppose I wouldn't mind him cutting a couple of the shelves, seeing as I value my hands intact and don't quite trust my hand-eye coordination near a table saw. I cut about two of my own planks and he worked out the rest. I don't like to think I'm a wuss, just worried about BYU's liability and this boy's when blood starts spurting from my fingertips.

I did glue my wood together on my own and secured the clamps mostly on my own. There will be some more assembly done for me tomorrow and I'll stain it on my own after that.

Here's the story of my life: set out to assert my independence, only to find it much more obliging to let a steady gentleman step in and help me out. Is that unhealthy?

[picture of the masterpiece and my hand in its creation to come]