And I thought this would be easy...

I've already typed up a few messages that I have yet to post. You see, I've only just sent out the announcement about Shababble and I don't want to clog the thing with messages before people even have a chance to read the intro. However, the event of this evening is taking precedence over my other posts for now. Poor other posts =-(....don't worry other posts! You will make it to Shababble soon!

So what could be so monumental as to jump the line ahead of the other guys? Well, its not so much monumental as it is frustrating. In my infinite wisdom I decided it would be a good idea to buy a bookcase-type thing at the Thrift Store. Yes it was ugly and had odd dimensions, but I needed something for my books, and this would also work as a place to perch my television in my new room. Ultimately the television was perched on something else that worked even better, but I was/am still in need of a book shelf, as I left mine back in the sunny state I left behind. As I was contemplating the positioning of the bookcase-sort-of-thing I asked out loud where I would put it. My father, who was being quite helpful, expressed that he didn't care where I put the ugly-ass thing (it really was something along those lines that he said). It was decided that it would be placed in the office-attic. But, this thing really is quite ugly. And now that I look at it with a more discerning eye, the shelves aren't really made for books. Nonetheless, it should work, but when all is said and done I think it will only aspire to be a bookcase, when the sad truth of the matter is that it will probably never be more than a GhettoCase.

So, even though my GhettoCase is quite the ugly duckling, I still hope to give it a bit of a makeover. Think "The Swan" with sandpaper and paint. But that also means a helluva lot more work than I realized!!! Which began this evening and lasted for at least 2 1/2 hours before I stopped for the night. My goodness!!!Keep in mind that we just painted my room within the week, and I've always thought that sort of thing was fun. So yes, painting a room is fun, but doing finishing work on something with lots of little crevices and crap is simply a pain in the booty!!! A serious pain!

It started with the sandpapering. I've sanded things before, but with my Dad's power-sander tools. Now anyone who has used power tools before knows that they are just plain fun. But I never thought doing sanding by hand would be anything too complicated. And even though I didn't really understand why I needed to sand the GhettoCase, I did it anyways because people told me I should (wow - what a sucker for peer pressure I am =-P). Sanding by hand can be quite a workout!! And super-loud too!! Plus it was kicking up the dark brown paint (or stain, whatever it was), and it even got on my jacket (luckily it washed out, otherwise the GhettoCase might have had to listen to my screams of anger). That whole process certainly zapped away some of my energy.

But it turns out that was the easiest part of refinishing the GhettoCase. I busted out my white base paint (purchased for the bargain price of $4.99 at Big Lots), and set to work at a job I thought would be quick and easy (after the sanding I was no longer sure it would be fun). Fortunately I did have the foresight to lay down drop cloths on the deck before I set to work. And I put on my emergency rain poncho to shield me from the paint. I can't even begin to describe what a pain-in-the-ass painting the GhettoCase was. The first coating of the base proved there would definitely need to be two coats of the white. That sucks. But considering it was barely masking the ugly, sanded brown, it was a necessity. So the rain was drip-drip-dripping away (thankfully the deck is covered) as I plugged endlessly along getting the Ghettocase base-coated.

During the second coat I decided it would be a good idea to turn the thing on its back and just pour a small pool of paint into one of the shelves to dip from. Um, ya....we all know what happens when someone like me tries to pour "just a little." Luckily I didn't empty the whole can though, and eventually I did manage to sop it all up. But by the time I finished doing the two layers on the GhettoCase any thoughts I had of just keeping it white smashed themselves into the ground. Not only was I covered pretty close to head-to-toe with white paint (proving that there are indeed things whiter than my legs (although not by much =-p)), but the GhettoCase didn't look like it had been coated twice with what should have been a respectable white, but more like I had covered the whole thing up with White-Out. Loads and loads of White-Out. So now I have to figure out what other color I will buy to cover up the base coat on the GhettoCase. When all is said and done I am going to have invested quite a lot more time and money into this thing than I counted on when I picked it up at the delivery deck of the thrift store. So this is just the beginning of the saga for the GhettoCase, the battle will continue, but maybe not tomorrow.

And yes, it's true.....people can have blogs and talk for ages about things that would seem insignificant to the masses. For anyone who read all of this and is baffled as to how one can babble so endlessly about something as seemingly simple as repainting a GhettoCase, you must remember.....I am the Shababbler, and babbling endlessly is my specialty ;-p.