Some Assembly Required

Our Saturday ended up being a little more exciting than I had anticipated. We did have a pretty quiet morning and an uneventful lunchtime. In the afternoon, though, the outside temp rose to a beautiful 52 degrees. That's unheard of for the last Saturday in December! So we decided we needed to get out for awhile.

That said, we decided to check out the local store and see what kind of TV stands they had in stock. We'd talked for awhile about getting a new one, and both of us felt it was time. We checked over the three models they had. I immediately found my favorite – and just as immediately dismissed it when I checked the dimensions and it was only 21” tall. I began to feel like Goldilocks.

After checking everything out and talking it over, we agreed on the same style as the one we should get. We got checked out and spent a bit of time chatting with the beautiful college-age twin girls that belong to my childhood best friend.

Once we got home, we divided up chores – I quickly chose to unpack and put together the new stand, letting hubby handle the electronics side of things. In the big picture, electronics and I do not get along very well. And since at one time I put together a new lawnmower and had it running properly, I figured I could handle a TV stand.

I got the pieces out of the box and was pleased to see they had letter stickers on them, correlating them with the directions. And the directions had not only words, but pictures. Yay. I've known for a long time that I'm a visual person – I can read the words, but it's much easier for me if there are drawings to go with those words. I laid out the wood pieces and counted out all the hardware pieces. Things went pretty smoothly – I only had to back up once and change how I'd done something.

Hubby had everything disconnected and helped me finish up the new stand. We took the old one out, put the new one in, and instantly both commented that the new one looked even better than we anticipated. Some days it takes so little to make me happy! Hubby reconnected all the electronics – we have satellite, a DVD player, a Roku box, and we also put up an outdoor antenna a couple of months ago and have that cable coming in as well. He did a fine job of labeling everything as he disconnected it, so the reconnection process went quickly.

We really, really like the new stand. It's a little taller than the former one and when hubby hooked everything up, he repositioned where the satellite box sits......it's now in the middle of the shelf instead of at one side. And that little adjustment has made it to much easier for us – especially adjusting the volume or changing the channel once we've gone to bed. Yes, we watch TV in bed. Yes, I know the so-called “experts” say you shouldn't. It's never kept us from going to sleep. And it's a lot more comfortable falling asleep in our bed than in the living room chair!!

Oh, and if you're wondering why in the world I ever put together a lawnmower – it had to do with a cheap ex who was tired of my asking him to get the lawnmower fixed so I could mow the lawn, so he bought a new mower that we couldn't afford and then brought it home in a box and told me if I wanted a lawn mower that ran, I could put it together. I put that mower together and had it running and mowing, so I had the last laugh.......I think!