Not any longer. After casually mentioning to Sarah that it’d be nice to have a pantry on that particular wall, she enthusiastically agreed and asked if I could perform such a task. Knowing that I was absolutely not capable of such a project, I told her that I was absolutely capable of the project. Her only stipulation was that the design and color needed to match the cabinets that were already in the kitchen. I started by moving the light switches to a different wall, and adding a couple electrical outlets in their place. I didn’t take any pictures of that project, because it was fairly straightforward, and I was eager to finish it before Sarah came home that evening.

Then, it was time to take measurements. I was dismayed to find out that not only were our floors not level, but the walls were also not “level” either. The project was no longer as simple (a term I already used loosely for the work involved) as building a box with doors. Now, each piece would need to be measured and cut separately. The unit would need to be assembled directly in the space, instead of simply (again, a loose form of the term) building it in an open space and moving it into position.

The measuring and planning process looked like this:

I regretted agreeing to this…

Anyway, I forgot to take a before picture, so I’ll give you the first picture I took. Using painters tape, I taped off the area that the pantry would be installed in.

Since the house is over a hundred years old – built in 1906, I believe – the measurements between the studs was anything but consistent. The walls are plaster, so using a stud finder was a waste of time. Instead, I tied a piece of dental floss to a magnet and swung it along the wall. When the magnet stuck, I marked the newly found screw with a piece of tape. That screw would have been driven into a stud, so I also knew where the studs were, which I marked on the tape.

Sarah then painted inside the tape with white paint, and I installed some shelf tracks.

I temporarily put some shelves in, so I could measure the spacing necessary before moving on.

After that, I painted the shelves, cut and stained the pantry frame and spacers, and put the trash can in place.

That was the end of the easy part. The doors have been something that I had been thinking about for a very long time. My father-in-law was gracious enough to let me use his router on an extended loan. Using some sheet-aluminum, I made a make-shift router table and used that to cut the edges around the border of the doors. I then used my table saw to cut a groove on the inside edges of the wood. After putting the door frame together and cutting the panel board to fit, I slid it into the frame, along the grooves. All four doors had to be cut to varying widths and height, due to the non-levelness of our home, so this part was crucial to get correct the first time.

I also added crown-molding to the top, and a kick-board to the bottom.

Next came the other hard part of the project. The trash can needed to be sealed from the rest of the unit. The last thing I wanted was to smell garbage when I opened the doors. Interior panels, trim, Killz paint, and caulk did that. I cut and assembled a door, mounted it to some drawer glides and a platform. I then added hinges to the door, and a couple powerful magnets. As a result, the trash door can be opened on the hinges, or rolled out like a drawer, or both.

To think, four pages of chicken scratch turned into this:

Not bad for my first major woodworking project. Plus Sarah is very happy, and that’s really all that matters, right?

Sometimes I have an idea for a blog post that I’d like to write, but I either don’t have the time to do so, or the creative juices just aren’t flowing at the time. What I’ll do, then, is log into my site, and put in a real quick snippet of a post. When I have time, I’ll come back and finish the post.

I’ve been sitting on one particular post for three months, and I can’t write it!!!! Back in January, I logged in, titled a post, and saved it. Unfortunately, I didn’t put any notes in to know just what the hell I wanted to blog about. So what does that leave me with? It leaves me with a blog title, which I’m sure would have been a cool title once everything got tied together with the blog post.

But, I don’t have the post to accompany the title.

Damn.

Because now, I’m really wondering just what the hell I was going to write. Every time I log into my site, I see the title, begging for the body to be written, and all I can ever think to myself is, what the hell does that title mean?

The post title in question?

Aya play

What the hell does it mean?!

I sometimes wonder just how many people have an inner voice that talks to them. All of us? I have one, and I hope I’m not alone. In my younger years, the voice was very feeble and timid. When I became upset with a situation, the voice would whisper, “umm, Joe? Hey, uhh, maybe we should calm down for a second?” Of course, this was akin to spitting into a volcano to lower the temperature of the lava.

Older (sigh) and wiser (ha!) now, I embrace the inner voice. He guides me though some difficult situations and keeps a sense of levelness about. It helps that the inner voice knows how to talk to me and make me listen. When I find anger trying to take hold and tunnel vision setting in, he kicks me off the road that I’m cruising along. “Joe! Dude, you need to chill the f*** out, like right now!”

I guess it’s like any long-term relationship. Eventually you just get tired of the other person’s shit and tell them whatever’s on your mind. Inner voice gets tired of my shit a lot.

I’ve been telling myself, every single day, that I really need to write some blogs. And it wasn’t just a need; I want to write some blogs. But it seemed (seems) that there just weren’t (aren’t) any words. Sure, I have a lot of things that I want to write about, but when I put my fingers on the keyboard, they just sit there.

And I’m pretty sure I know why.

I do most of my writing when I’m feeling depressed. Even when I’m writing about fond memories or something funny that happened, I’m usually at least mildly depressed about life. Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for my desire to blog, I’ve been feeling pretty darned good lately. I’ve undertaken a really intense workout program called P90x, which I believe to be the culprit. I certainly don’t know the science behind it, but what I do know is I have some sort of chemical imbalance that results in me going through phases of strong depression. What else I know is that, since I’ve started working out consistently, I’ve felt better than I have in years.

I’m not saying that I’ve been unhappy at home or with Sarah or Tyler or work. I’m not saying that at all, so I hope my general message doesn’t get misconstrued. I’m just saying… well, that’s the problem: I don’t know how to say it. Depression’s a bitch like that.

Well, ol’ inner voice over there (I nod my head slightly to the right) got tired of hearing me lament on my lack of blogging. As I read the latest news on whichever news site I was perusing this very morning, I found myself pausing for a moment to think that I really needed to —

Oh you big baby! Write then! Write something, anything! Just quit complaining.

Like so many other times, inner voice is right. I’m not a world renowned novelist with a case of writer’s block just three books into his seven book contract. I’m some guy, in some small town, that loves sharing his life with all of you.  So, here I am, writing something, anything.

Crap! I intended to write about Tyler’s two missing fingers, but this post went left when it should have gone right. I sometimes feel like a need a GPS for life. Anyway, that will be my next post, I promise. Unless I don’t complete it before Wordless Wednesday. Coming soon: The Case of the Missing Fingers.

I’m committing a blogger faux paus here by explaining my absence. I guess it isn’t really a faux paus, but maybe more of a pet peeve of mine. I don’t need to visit a blog to see a post that says “I know I haven’t been around, but I promise to post something soon.” That’s akin to calling someone to tell them you have to tell them something and will call back later to do so.

But here I am, getting ready to explain why my blog has fallen dormant for a bit (and why my unread blogs are in the triple digits right now). So, either skip this post, or just buckle in for a couple paragraphs.

I’ve already mentioned that I had some time off work for the holidays. I had a great couple weeks, and really wanted to enjoy the time I had with my family. I didn’t want to sit at the computer and type up a post when I would rather be with the very subject of my blog along with my dear wife. So I didn’t blog.

I snuck a couple posts in after the holidays, but then I was off to sunny Phoenix for a week (work related). I see my co-workers 2 to 4 times a year, and this was one of those times. With meetings, dinners, activities, a super-awesome sixty minute massage, and sleep, the days were packed full. So I didn’t blog.

I’m like 90% of the U.S. population (that’s a statistic I made up to support this post) in that I’ve made a New Year’s resolution to get in shape. So, this past Monday, I started the P90X program. If you don’t know what it is, Google it. What I will say is that it is the most intense workout I’ve ever experienced. I’ve never been in so much pain over my whole body. To accommodate the 75 to 90 minute routines, I’ve had to sacrifice some of my “computer time” in favor of “exercise time”. I’ve also gone to bed a bit earlier this week, because I’ve been dog tired come the end of the day. So, I didn’t blog.

It also turns out that when one doesn’t blog for a while, it’s difficult to get back into the flow of doing so. I love this blog. I love sharing with all of you. It’s a great release for me, and I thoroughly enjoy going through and reading some of my previous entries. I have a terrible memory, so reading my past posts truly allows me to relive the moments. I sometimes wonder if somebody else has the password to my site and rewrites my posts because the author of some of these entries is damn talented! But having, what a consider to be, too long of an absence, my creativity has began hibernating. And waking that beast is a bitch, so I didn’t blog.

But I’ve missed blogging. I’ve missed your blogs. I’m on day 5 of the P90X and can finally move a little bit, so I wanted to get my blog juices flowing. What better way to do that than to write a post explaining where I’ve been?

So, I’m blogging.

With all the traveling I’ve done over the last month (Kentucky, Ohio, Chicago, and Missouri (listed not chronologically, but in my own arbitrary order)), I have spent surprisingly little time at home. This poses a problem as it relates to my blog revolving around Tyler and our adventures. It would be a valid – and true – argument to say that I could just as easily blog while on the road as I could while at home. And this brings me to my confession. If you’ve been following my uncharacteristically sporadic updates on Twitter and Facebook, you already know where I’ve been and why I’ve virtually disappeared from my online world.

UGH! She didn’t know he was a vampire. She didn’t know he was a werewolf. Now she doesn’t know she’s pregnant?! Give me a BREAK!! 11:01 PM Aug 27th from UberTwitter

If he friggin imprints on the newborn, I’m going to assassinate Stephanie Meyer!! 2:17 PM Aug 28th from Text

He imprinted on a friggin’ newborn?! Outrageous! 1:51 PM Aug 31st from UberTwitter

I know my man-card is in danger of being revoked, and for this I need to apologize to all men over the age of twelve. Sheer curiosity made me download the Twilight audiobooks. In the limited free time that would have been better spent blogging, I inserted the earbuds into my auditory opening and pressed the play button.

If it’s any consolation to the fact that I was hooked enough to see how the storyline played out, I did spend quite a bit of time criticizing the story and characters. Sarah informed that the points of the series that had her crying (you too, Mel!) were the same points that I sent her a text message with some variation of “Oh. My. God. Are you freaking kidding me?! How stupid is this going to get?!”

And lastly, to all my blogging friends, I am completely caught up on all your blogs. I made the unfortunate decision to not comment on the backlog of posts in my reader, so that I could get from triple-digit unread blogs, to single digit manageability.

I missed the birth of not Max, I missed good karma planting a kiss on a coal miner’s granddaughter, I missed hearing about my iSister (internet, not interactive) peeing all the time. I missed a lot of stuff and won’t let it happen again.

The tl;dr version:
I got wrapped up in a teeny-bopper love story about sparkling vampires, stupid girls, and an emo, angst-ridden werewolf.
I’m back.

Like most stories, the series of posts did not go as planned. What was originally planned as a three or four paragraph post turned into 4 posts of a three part series, where I explain some things that I’ve never really shared with anyone before.

I figure that my readers may be interested to know a little bit about my past, and how I got to where I am now, but since I’ve already published the posts over there, I wanted to create this snippet to point you over there for the story. I’ll try not to do this in the future, but, like I said, the story went in an entirely different direction than planned. And, frankly, I think it’s written pretty well and don’t want them to go completely unnoticed.

The “I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo” series:
Part 1 of 3
Part 2 of 3
Part 3 of 3… maybe
Part 4 of 3