Having successfully made a bed for Milo, I'm now making one for me. I got the pieces cut out and the screw holes drilled today, and then tomorrow there will be sanding and gluing, then stain and polyurethane. It'll need to be assembled in the bedroom, since there's no way the queen sized one will be able to fit around corners, but it should be okay. I'm getting a mattress from a friend of my sister's, and I already bought a mattress protector and sheets, so. Bed: some assembly required.

Meanwhile, I have a 10 page paper due on Thursday that's the majority of my grade and I haven't even started on it, but hey. I'm thinking the title will be "Just stay down: America's schools and the struggle to create an underclass." While I haven't come up with an outline or a thesis statement yet, you get the general idea. Maybe something like, "Since its founding, and even before, the ideals of the United States have been about freedom and opportunity. America, where anyone can make something of themselves - but who's going to clean the toilets? Who's going to work long days in the fields, getting paid little to nothing, so that someone else can make a profit? The answer has been, for the length of the country's history, immigrants and slaves - but how are you going them down on the farm when they've heard freedom ring? Educate them into believing that's where they're supposed to be."

I fail so hard at self care today. I should have stopped at noon, but instead I pushed myself and now I feel sick and weak and awful. I mean, the upside is that I did all the staining and polyurethane, so all that's left is putting it together, but seriously - I could've done the polyurethane tomorrow.

No pictures today, since my hands were covered in stuff and the only change was in the color. Tomorrow I'll put it together and take pictures of the final form, but right now I'm just going for holding still and feeling sorry for myself.

I got up and made myself an omelette for breakfast before putting on the breadmaker for some low carb bread, then I set to work on the bed. More on that later, but yes, I've been productive, woo. And I took the bun off my burger and ate it with some of the low carb stuff, so woo. I'm still going to eat an ice cream sandwich later but, baby steps.

I'm very proud of myself for allowing myself to stop to rest and eat lunch even though I wasn't done with the task I was on. I need to go back to Home Depot and get more screws and glue, and then hopefully I'll have the energy to go finish up with the drilling and gluing so that tomorrow I can start staining, but even if I don't, today was a good day. Self care - what a concept!

I'm really heavy, and Milo is sort of heavy and, more importantly, ballistic. Box springs are a joke - he's literally broken one within hours of it being in the house - the last box spring I ever bought. My mom had made him a bed, but it broke after a long while and then it sat outside for even longer, so it's around but filthy. I'd found a heavy duty metal bedframe for my bed that's about $100 and lasts maybe 6 months or so, but he's now gone through three of those - two of them within the past month. (Amazon, btw, was AMAZING about first doing an exchange and then a refund without making me go through hoops trying to sent the bent frames back. Woo, Amazon.)

After a little bit of kicking myself for not keeping more of my mom's tools when she was moving and selling or giving away everything that wouldn't fit in her car, I decided that I was going to just get the damn tools and then make a new bed for Milo myself. The beds mom had previously made all had the same point of failure - the 1x1 piece of wood that held the slats in place. Instead of having a separate, thinner piece of wood attached to the side rail, I'm instead putting a 2x4 sideways, so that it's a lot less likely to sheer off. (Sort of like the bed <ahref="http://www.thestonybrookhouse.com/2015/09/easy-bed-frame-for-under-40.html">here.)

Things I already have:
Power drill (about $30 if I'd had to buy it)
Power sander (another $30)
2x4s - about $3 each
Sawhorses (???)
Level ($5?)
Slats - 2x6 boards cut to 38" long, need to be sanded down since they're unfinished and written/drawn on (about 2 for $5, total of 12, so $30?)

Things I bought:
Circular saw
pocket jig set
pocket screws
hole filler things
right angle clamp
regular clamp
caulk gun
project adhesive
wood stain
polyurethane
sandpaper
tack cloth
2x6 cut into two 42" lengths with a bit left over
candy for my very patient son
=$241

Now, was all of this necessary? Not really - the jig, special screws, and clamps could be replaced with just drywall screws and save about $100, but that would mean weaker joints, and I want this thing as steady as possible. Also, the thing promises to be an easy thing for new woodworkers to use, and I'm all about easy. There'd also be some savings if you either already had the tools or had someone you could borrow them from, but I already regretted once saying "oh, I won't need those!" and so I'm buying the damn tools to keep on hand.

Most plans for bedframes like this just use 2x4s and maybe add some 1" pieces for the side and/or the legs, but I'm hoping the changes I made to include the 2x6 pieces will make it extra sturdy. Definitely no 1" anything involved. If I hadn't already had the slats I might've gone for plywood or more 2x4s instead, but I think the 2x6s will be good and durable.

The benefit of doing it myself is that if it does break then I can either repair or replace it with just the outlay for the wood; the expense for the tools has already happened, y'know? The actual materials for the bed would be about $40 and another 10-20 for finish/sealer. That's for a twin/single, but I think scaling it up for a full size would still be well under $100, where the metal bedframe I've been replacing at least once a year is $100-130. I think it'll be good? And hey, if it turns out well, I can do it again and again and maybe branch out into other projects - there's plans out there for all sorts of things.

First things first, though. Today I'm going to clear space on the patio to set up my work area, and if I have the energy then I might also make a start on cutting and/or sanding. Tomorrow I'll cut and sand and then lay it all together like a giant set of tinkertoys to plan out how it'll all get screwed together, marking where I'm going to drill. After that, drilling and assembly and gluing the relevant parts, then a day for the glue to dry, more sanding if needed, a quick wipe with the tack cloth and then time for the stain and the polyurethane to be applied and to dry. Theoretically I could get it all done over the weekend, but I think I'm going to be kind to myself and set a limit of 2-3 hours max at a time; I'd rather do it slower and well than make mistakes and get frustrated.

In any case, it's after 3, so I'm going to pee and then get started! I'm going to take pictures along the way, but those will probably go on tumblr just because it's easier to post pictures there. I'm pretty excited about getting this done!

I have fibromyalgia - it's officially diagnosed and everything. It's gotten a lot better since I had the bariatric surgery and lost 200+ pounds, but it hasn't gone away. I just kind of keep forgetting, since I can do so much more,that I do still have limits. I might make it to two hours of straight work in the yard without breaks, instead of having to work five and rest five, but after those two hours, I'm shaking and can't seem to stop, and my arms and hands are sore.

But, I tell myself, is it really a chronic pain thing? Could it just be that I've been sitting (and eating) most of the past month? Could it be that, since I'm still almost 400 pounds, it's fatness rather than illness causing issues? My arms are sore from swinging the weed whacker, and I should just suck it up!

I am so much harsher to myself than I ever would be to anyone else. Why can't I be nicer?

Anyway. There's less than an hour before the boy gets home - 3 hours twice a week sure isn't a lot, but I signed him up for his school's summer program anyway, on the principle that I'd have to be up early to get him his medicine anyway, and it'd give him a chance to get out of the house. He's super happy about it; last week he was asking to go to school all day Tuesday and trying to get into his uniform. I'm spending that time sitting the fuck down, and then hopefully there's still some chef boyardee or something so that I can continue sitting for some time to come. I managed to drag myself into the shower and wash my hair, but getting dressed beyond wrapping myself in my bathrobe has not happened yet and may take a while.

On the up side, the back yard now no longer features weeds literally five feet tall, so I feel better about life. There's still work to do to make it look like a lawn and maintain it, and I didn't do anything with the front yard, but still. Baby steps.

The first day of actual classes went fairly well. The woman professor was very encouraging in general, and I think I scored points for being able to talk about intersectional feminism and feminist theory. The dude professor is so obviously just going through the motions. I wish there'd been more guidance for the assignment due next time, since it's 20% of the grade, but he made it seem super easy? It's a history class and a lot of the people don't have a history background, so while to me an assignment about identifying primary and secondary sources seems way too simple to be true, some of the others were genuinely confused.

It all seems eerily easy for a doctoral program, but my little sister pointed out that I do literally have a genius level IQ and that might be a factor. It's weird, because I know I'm intelligent, but I was treated like a dummy so much in early elementary that I don't default to believing it? Sometimes I have to remind myself, literally and out loud, "not everybody knows everything that I know."

Anyway, it went okay. I panicked a little when one girl talked about having trouble registering for fall, but I logged in and confirmed that yes, I registered and definitely have a spot in the classes that both meet for half a day on three Saturdays, and didn't end up in the group that meets half a day Saturday for one class and all day Sunday for the other. I plan to continue being a super-nerd and registering for classes at 6:30am on the day that registration opens up.

I took today off, just played Avengers Academy and read fic. Ate too much. I need to get the food situation back under control, maybe even make a schedule for the summer so I keep things organized and on track. For now, though, I'm just focusing on being kind to myself.