DIY. How 'Bout Not.

I've decided that "Do It Yourself" is ridiculous for people like me. I already knew that, but the past ten days have confirmed it. I have friends who Pinterest their whole house and do EVERYTHING themselves.... and it looks great. They buy old furniture and refurbish it, they use leftover scraps of material from their everyday life to make masterpiece decor, AND they sew their on clothes. (When I say clothes, I mean like pretty blouses and tops. Not old school 1800's clothes.) These friends make me sick. I don't enjoy doing things like that, and I'm not good at it. Yesterday, stiff and cramped from bending to spray 50 slender 4-6' railings (explanation to follow), truth was spoken into my life. The truth? Marissa, screw DIY. It's a lie. Okay, fine, that's my personal life-application translation. The truth is actually: You don't have to be crafty or enjoy making things from scratch. You really don't. It doesn't make you a better spouse/parent/homemaker/person. It makes you unique and talented, for sure. But I have my own unique talents. Making things from Pinterest or other crafting resources is cool but it's not who I am. In fact, it's both painful for both me, and anyone who sees the final product. I'm a person who works hard to earn some extra money to purchase whatever it is I need instead of making it. Making it myself is stressful and it never turns out right (or sightly). And usually ends up being more expensive and time consuming than if I had just gone out and bought it. That's just who I am. This re-realization sprang from my most recent failed DIY attempt. I thought, "Let's give this whole DIY thing another shot." Well people, I've been shot. And it's a crafting fatality. I just wanted to paint Z's metal bed frame to match her room. Not so hard, right? I decided to use spray paint and Abe went out to get it (we have been down a car for three weeks). The store didn't have a color to match, so Abe brought home a rather expensive but totally awesome paint, which changes color in the light (blue/green/purple). He took apart the bed and the kids and I sanded it down outside. It took a solid hour and our hands were cramping half way through. That was when the first wave of doubt hit me. Carry on soldier. Sanding: check. We washed the frame, let it dry, and then it rained. Every day for a week. When the sun finally showed its face, I started painting. Only to realize the bed has to be painted black first, before you spray the multi-color on it. Project halt. I waited for Abe to get home that night, and then went and got paint. I spent three days getting the frame sprayed black. Why three days, you ask? Because it's windy here. So all the debris in the Northern Hemisphere gravitated towards the wet frame. So did all the grass, even though we haven't mowed yet AND I used a tarp. And since it's windy, I couldn't hold the spray can 12-14" from the frame as it instructs; I had to hold it 4-6" so the paint wouldn't spray away. This resulted in major dripping. Actually, dripping is too kind. It's more like waves. Black paint: check. Repeat process with multi-colored paint. Of course, on the last piece of the frame the paint decided to wrinkle. Yes, literally. Why, I have no clue. The black paint was already dry. The multi-color just decided not to work on the fifth piece of frame. It looks like elephant skin. An old, old elephant. (I'm going to label it "artistic texture" though, when people ask though. Elephant skin doesn't sound pretty.)

So in the end, the frame DID get painted (although we won't talk about what it looks like, or post a picture) but I spent ten days total and $72 in paint to get it done. I should have just gone and bought another bed from Craigslist.

Lesson learned. DIY, you're the oil to my water.