Back in August I decided that life would be better if I could surround myself with bubblegum pink every time I felt like studying, playing video games or chatting it up on Facebook. When that realization hit, I scrapped my other big plans for the weekend (they included sitting and/or watching TV) and took up a paint brush. I was pretty darn proud to have painted a room (mostly) all on my own. That being said, one thing I've never done is painted a whole house.
I never said I painted a life-sized house.
Ok, so its probably not exactly what you were expecting, but there were some delightful similarities to painting a human-size house. For one, umm, well... ok, so, there was... umm, paint involved. Also paint brushes. And... umm... marker. House painters use markers, right?
OK, despite the numerous, obvious similarities (such as its house-like shape and ambiance), it goes without saying that painting this little house was nothing like painting a people house. I've yet to find a people house small and light enough to be picked up with one hand. Unless I've developed super powers. There's an irrefutable test I'm going to perform. I will levitate a bird. If I can lift a bird off the ground - make it "fly", if you will, then I must be supernaturally endowed.
Ok, so, I might actually be a supervillian. That remains to be seen.
Where the heck was I? Right. Painting a smallish cardboard house for seemingly no reason. I went over to my folks' house and spent the afternoon painting the delightful cardboard house that my dad found at a craft shop a few days earlier. Now, I've been doing a lot of crafty type stuff for this project and though this was something new, I found myself drawing on a lot of my earlier lessons. Not unlike quilting, if you just hammer through without being careful and planning, its not going to turn out good.
My dad's a master of details too, so he helped me plan out a lot of the nice little touches. He surprised me with a couple of them, actually. While I was painting the house, lawn and windows, my dad was working on the roof and front door. The house he found didn't come with a front door (it just had an opening) so he crafted one out of cardboard.
And did you know that when cardboard has little squigglies in the middle of it, they call it "corrugated" cardboard? I was not aware of that until house painting day. Mostly because I'm not a cardboard connoisseur, but still. It was only a mildly embarrassing exchange.
Dad: You can do this with regular cardboard, but not when its corrugated.
Me: What about when there are little squigglies in the middle?
Dad: Well, the answer might have something to do with the meaning of the word corrugated.
Me: Corrugated means there are little squigglies, doesn't it.
Dad: Very good.
Pictured: The door my dad designed from scratch.
Now is usually the part of the journal entry that I start talking about the larger philosophical truth that I gained from my new experience. But if I do that then I won't be able to surprise anyone with tomorrow's entry. That and, well, the larger philosophical truth was that its nice to spend an afternoon being creative with my dad and, quite frankly, I knew that already.
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