CHRISTA TOMLINSON: NEW DESK!

Furniture building. I am not good at it. I get impatient, throw things, and cry when I'm not done in the twenty minutes I think it should take. But my back was suffering at my old desk so I went out on Black Friday and bought a really cool new one. After a few days of looking at the box, as impatient as ever, I was ready to build it on my own. I figured it would take me an hour - max. Of course when I posted the picture of what the completed project was supposed to look like: desk, attached L-piece, hutch, drawers, and doors, I received both chuckles at my naive belief I could build it on my own and offers of help to build it. Thank goodness!

My friends and roller derby league mates, Speed O' and Sam I Slam came over to help me put it together. At this point, I still believed it would only take an hour to build it. Once we were underway however, I realized I was wrong. We got off to a great start. Speed O' organized the pieces alphabetically (I wouldn't have thought to do that) Sam read the directions (I scoff at directions) and it was on. Well, we did hit one snag. After Sam laid out all the little small baggies of screws and whatnot in order, Speed O' picked one up and ripped it open. Pieces flew everywhere! Thank goodness for spare parts, right?

Sam in black and Speed O' in gray. They rightly relegated me to handing them tools and documenting the process.

My dog, Mindy. She's either making sure we're doing it right, guarding me to make sure I'm okay, or plotting evil. You can never tell with her.


My niece, Tan, came in to play foreman.

After FOUR HOURS we were done. I don't know how in the world I thought this massive desk would take an hour to build. We ran into a bit of trouble with the doors. I of course, was the only one who had a good picture of what the finished product would look like. So when Sam and Speed O' went to attach the doors, they assumed they opened outwards like most doors do. Nope! These raised up like DeLorean doors, but I failed to mention that. We got them all the way on and were confused as to why the handles didn't match up before we realized we'd attached them wrong. Minor setback.

So thankful for my friends! They got my desk built without me having to cry or throw anything once. Just one of the awesome examples of my friends and family supporting me in my crazy career path of writing smexy books.