Hmm? A year off, or retirement plan??

I have a certain persistent aquintance known to some as Keith Textor. I am almost daily awakened between 5-7AM by the dreadful sound of my phone ringing, at least on the nights that I forget to prepare by turning off the ringer. You see, what exactly happens is that after a long night of sleeping in the luxurious bed I built for him, and having wonderfully happy dreams of new ways to torment me, he yawns opens up his sleepy eyes, rolls over and excitedly looks over NO not at his wife, but at the phone laying on the nightstand behind her. With a surge of adrenaline charged  energy, he leaps over Rachel and in one swift motion hits speed dial #1 to see if I am up and anxiously awaiting his call. Who knows what jewel of wisdom, or what amazing story I might have on this morning to share with him!! I always help to start his day off right! "What an awesome friend that Teddy is, no not friend.... HERO!" I at this point, either cover my head with a pillow and sob, or if I more likely was already awake worriedly anticipating this morning ritual, I might actually answer with " OK Keith, what do you want from me now?" Although I ask, I already know... Yes, I know exactly what he wants. Furniture. "Hey you lazy mangy mutt" he begins, "why aren't you out of bed yet and working on my gun cabinet?" And so begins another day of continual texts and calls, about furniture that only exists in his wildest fantasies. I could wallpaper my bedroom with his blueprints and design ideas. The infamous bed that I am sure you have already been sorely aquainted with, and most likely never want to hear anything about again, took about a year. Why you ask?? Was it hard work? Well, yes but... I dont work good under pressure. Actually, I'll rephrase that, "I don't work under pressure." The more I am harassed, the less I really care. I do honestly feel bad about this, but I guess I have a streak of  stubborn contrariness that runs strong through my veins particularly at 5:30Am. But yes, it happened. Just before their wedding, I pulled out my chisels, cleared up a week of my work and spend days carving mortises and tenons, and then finally tiredly emerged from my shop with a 3000lb bed frame that honestly rivals any building I ever made in sturdiness. You can grab ahold of it and shake for all your worth and not move it one little bit. Unfortunately, this was exactly to a T what Keith had designed. He was quite satisfied. So.... Here I am, after another year of hearing about how Im "Not doing anything" and "Should be working on that gun cabinet." I figure I better get it done soon before campmeeting where I can give it to Keith, or else I will eventually be driving 6 hours to deliver. So thursday and friday were set aside just for this particular task. Thursday I get all sorts of important things done, except... you guessed it. So I begin at 9 and just after midnight I have all the miters cut, the back inletted, the box glued together. I breath a sigh of relief and collapse unto my bed until my morning wakeup call. I gotta admit that it did feel a bit better to have a little progress to brag about. So Friday, same story. OH WOW!! A booksale! Im sure I can be there and back before 2:00 and have plenty of time to finish up the doors! So, at 5:00 I get home and sprint into the shop, sawdust flies, glue is splattered about, clamps are clamped and just barely by 8 I have finished up the sanding. Sabbath approaches fast, I panic and start applying stain with the biggest brush I have. OH how much relief I felt, to throw down my tools and watch the sun go down. So there you have it, 2 pictures texted to me by Mr. Textor. The cabinet don't belong on the bed, but he plans on putting it on the wall above I guess. I REALLY hope that it was good glue I used, and that he knows how to find the studs.... Not something I would want above my head at night :(  

Just for curiosities sake, I did a little search tonight on the prices of custom made beds and gun cabinets. Whoah!! OK I shoulda kept them ;). If I can cut out the pieces for 10 or 20 cabinets on one day just to save set up time, and put them all together on the next, I think I just might be able to take the rest of the year off! Of course, whether or not I get all 20 done in 2 days, does depend on how many used book sales are running. :) Or, maybe I'll just finish out this month with building such things, and retire?? Still debating. What am I going to do with all my surplus free time you ask? I got that all figured out too. I'm taking my books, guitar, and horse, on a nice long ride far away from cell phone reception. Now you would think I could get at least a little grace period to recover now wouldn't ya? HA "Hey wake up you good for nothing lazy hippie, why aren't you out of bed and working on my cedar chest?"