Attack of the Rent!

I got up pretty late this morning, and though a mild sense of urgency would surely be appreciated by my day job, I took my usual one-hour snooze before finally crawling out of bed. It is a Friday, a self-declared semi-holiday of mine and this justifies everything.

As I was scratching my belly, yawning while opening the refrigerator door, a small stick-on note caught my eye. Rent was due. I mentally computed how much money would be left until the next payday and I realized that I would well be below the poverty line this afternoon. Off to the bank I went, there was no escaping the rent. I cried a tear while filling up the deposit slip, why the heck didn't I just mooch off my parents? Everyone else was doing it, people who made a ton of money more than I did. Free board and lodging, your laundry magically re-appearing neatly folded and hung in the closet each week, coffee and breakfast greeting you when you got out of bed and most importantly no pesky utility bills.

I'll stop... no point in thinking about things that will never happen anyway.

*****

I've got another project in the works... a bed. The old metal frame that I've been using has at last saw the extent of my patience and needs to go. What I need is a sturdy, wooden bed.I visited a friend's pad recently and saw this spanking new bed frame. It did cost an arm and a leg but I could imagine how blissful sleep would be in it.

To begin, I had to choose some sort of design for the frame. I have been buying up old design magazines in hopes of finding the one that would suit my taste as well as my pad. Got a couple already in mind, but now comes the hard part, designing it myself. Besides drawing the thing up on paper, design also entails matching materials and quantities thereof to achieve the most economical proportions. I've decided on kiln-dried pine wood planks supported by a frame of 2x4s and 1x2s. The other alternative would be to buy a couple of whole ply-boards but the dimensions just won't match. I'd have to cut them up into planks anyway, and that takes more work and more time. Another consideration is how they would have to be put together. Since I do plan on moving out someday to another, more permanent residence, I'd have to make sure that I can readily take it all apart and put it all together again.

So when do I begin putting it all together? So far my weekends are booked until mid-August so that's my target date. Already bought a jigsaw and sent the broken impact drill for repairs.

Must say that I'm all excited about it. Been frequenting the hardware at the mall so I know what to get and how much it would all costs. So far the budget is at P5,000 but that's going to go up still considering that I'm also thinking of replacing my old mattress. To off-set the additional costs, have been tweaking my basic design, using angle bars instead some of the timber. Haven't finalized it yet, still need to do some work on it.

*****

Another long drive ahead to Baguio, the country's summer capital. Looking forward to the uphill drive on my new set of tires, should be better suited to the uneven roads though a lot heavier than my old ones. Am also scheduled to change the engine oil and adjust both alignment and camber, this trip should loosen the engine and suspension up so everything's nice and tight after maintenance.

Am also excited about hanging out and doing some reading and writing while up there. Need some relax time from the daily grind I've been up against these past few weeks. Maybe log in some kilometers jogging, too. I wonder how the weather there is this weekend.