Paint it ...cream

Today, I ache.  My arms, my tummy, my back, and most especially, my knees.

Mr WithaY and I spent yesterday decorating at my lovely Mum's house.  We painted the bedroom - a small-ish room, to be fair - in a day.  Ceiling, walls, woodwork.  We work fast when we get going.  Plus it was really nice emulsion and satinwood paint which went on easy and dried fast.  And, though I say so myself, it looked really smart when we'd finished.  And, the most important thing, my lovely Mum was pleased.

On the way home, me driving, Mr WithaY in the passenger seat, we were discussing how much lighter the evenings are now.

Me:  Wow, it's half past five and not dark.  Excellent.

Mr WithaY:  And the mornings are lighter, which is great.

Me:  I woke up really early and although the sun wasn't up, it was light.  I guess it stays light for a bit after the sun sets too?

Mr WithaY:  Yes, that's why you're legally allowed to shoot for an hour after sunset and before sunrise, as it's still light.

Me:  So this would be "dusk" about now?

Mr WithaY:  Yep, the sun has gone down but it's not dark.

Me:  And there's the morning version of dusk as well.

Mr WithaY: (After a short, incredulous pause).  Yes. You mean "dawn."

We had stopped at some traffic lights, which was just as well, because we both laughed until we cried.

Easily amused, we are.

What else is new?  Well, in big procurement news, I have bought a staple gun.  I make these pretty padded memo boards, and they require quite a lot of stapling to keep everything in place.  Previously, I have borrowed Mr WithaY's heavy duty staple gun, but I thought I should get one of my own, dedicated for girlie craft stuff rather than stapling animal skins to trees or whatever it is he does all day.

I picked one up in Homebase - almost £25, thank you very much - a few months ago, and it sat on my shelf, waiting to be useful.  It has a handy little plastic tool case, so I felt like a real professional when I unpacked it for the first time at the weekend.

Readers, it was SHITE.

Really.  Almost everything about it was awful.  The staples have to be dropped down a tube to load it, and then a separate spring-loaded stick thingy gets pushed down the hole to hold them in place.  Unless you get the angle of pitch EXACTLY right, the staples break apart and jam the stapler.  I assumed I was being too oafish and heavy-handed, and persevered until I had a cartridge of staples inserted properly.  I tried it out on a thick wad of newspaper.  There was a satisfying THUNK noise.

When I looked at the newspaper, though, the staple was only partially embedded, with a clear air gap between the cross piece and the paper.  I dicked about with the adjustment wheel thingy that alters the force of the staple, and tried several more times.  No discernible difference.  Still a big air gap.

Isn't it interesting that there are so many technicalities to stapling?  No?

Anyway.  I decided to carry on, as I had already started 4 memo boards.  I continued with the lame-ass half-stapling for a while, until I had finished the first stage of the memo board making process, and then I went and found a small hammer from Mr WithaY's study.  I like creative projects which require hammers.

I went round all of the work I'd already done and hammered all these stupid not-even-making-an-effort staples so that they were properly embedded, and then gave up in disgust.

After that, I went on Amazon and ordered a new stapler, advertised as being suitable for DIYand upholstery.  It arrived this morning, I have high hopes.

In the meanwhile, the Homebase stapler will be taken to a charity shop and left there to make some other poor sod's DIY/crafting a misery.  And I won't bother buying any of Homebase's own brand tools or equipment again.

Gah.

Other news:  Progress on the big long-term business plan is being made.  I might be able to actually tell people about it on here without feeling like I am jinxing it.

In related news, I took (and passed) an online food hygiene training course last week.  I now know not to lick raw chicken blood up off the floor.