Reality Check

Fact: It takes more than an hour to stain a spinning wheel.

I'm not sure why this came as a surprise to me. I did, after all, unpack the box, unwrap all the carefully wrapped little parts, and lay them all out on the newspaper before I ever even opened the can of stain. I admit, I may have been a little excited. I also admit that I may have been a little tired, what with it being after 10 pm and all. But surely I should have noticed that there are sort of a lot of parts, and that those parts have sort of a lot of crevices. Shouldn't I? I'm not new to staining, after all. I ought to know how long these things take.

I'm going to have to blame this one on Inspiration. Around here, Inspiration always strikes late at night, after Reason has sensibly gone to bed. Inspiration is the party animal of my psyche, and like all good party animals, it is a night owl. Inspiration is responsible for many of my more questionable projects. That wall I just had to paint Pepto Bismol pink at 11 pm? Inspiration. The bizarre faux finish in the bathroom? Inspiration. The fun fur collar on that silk cardigan? Yup. Inspiration.

And in the morning, when Reason wakes up and sees the results, where do you think Inspiration is? That's right. Sleeping. It's left to Reason to repaint, retexture, and frog. Reason tends to get a little annoyed at Inspiration in the bright light of day. Especially when that light comes on at 7 am after a particularly long night.

The staining went well, actually. I was in the garage, alone, no radio or tv. So it didn't occur to me the first time my foot fell asleep that I might have been sitting there a bit longer than I realized. And I was focusing pretty hard on what I was doing, so I wasn't that surprised that my eyes felt a little like my lids had turned to sandpaper. In fact, it wasn't until I stood up and realized that all of my spinal vertebrae had fused that I first thought I might want to consider stopping and going up to bed. But I was almost done (or, at least, almost halfway done), so it didn't really make sense to stop. I soldiered on until my husband finally came downstairs and asked, perhaps a little crankily, if I was planning on coming to bed at all. He may have asked a few times before that; I'm not sure.

Anyway, I did get it done. Now all I have to do is wax it and put it together. It shouldn't take more than an hour.