A man walks into a bar...

Well, it was a restaurant really, but the bar was right next door and he was eighteen, so it wasn’t long before he made his way there. But before he got to the bar, he sat down across from me and I have never been the same since. He was wearing khaki pants with a bright green Billabong long sleeved t-shirt. He had blonde tips and his hair was gelled to perfection. He also had the coolest cover on his Nokia that I had ever seen!

A couple of weeks ago, in August, we celebrated our 12th anniversary. Thanks to the in-laws, we also got to spend our first night away since Big was born. It was so wonderful and I’ve already said that I want two nights next year!

While I brag on here about what I make, I don’t spend a lot of time showing off what David makes, and I probably should. He is the most creative and talented person I know. I did show the bookshelves that he made, but he has done so much more.

A couple of years ago, he single handed (and I mean it, one arm was in a sling because he had broken his collarbone) made a king size bed from a gorgeous slab of timber my dad had given us for the bed head. The rest of the bed was made from recycled hardwood from his parents’ verandah when they had it renovated. It is complete with reading lamps and I absolutely love it!

When I started working for Cairns Parenting Companion magazine, I was spending a considerable amount of time at my laptop and with our house being so small, the space I could have possibly had a desk is filled with sewing stuff. But I had seen an idea on pinterest for a desk that folded out of the wall and doubled as a picture frame when not in use. David rolled his eyes, but got planning and looked at what we had lying around in the garage.

A few years ago, friends of ours renovated their kitchen and gave us their old cupboards. Most of them are in our patchwork kitchen, but there were a few left over. One of the doors was an ideal size for my desk. David cut some scraps of decking left over from when we renovated our deck (there is a pattern here...) and bought some hinges.

It’s not completely finished. I’ve covered the top side of the desk with fabric to match the bookshelves, but we want to put a piece of tin on the other side to cover the raw edges (I leave the desk down because it looks bad without the tin!) and so it can be a magnetic display board for the girls’ artwork. It is such an awesome solution!

But perhaps the most amazing thing David has made recently was a present for his best friend’s birthday. When David came to me with the idea, I thought it sounded awesome and simple enough. But he is a perfectionist through and through and the simple sounding project turned into an epic task that took over four months of working every night, getting help from people with the tools and expertise needed on weekends and a lot of frustration and broken wood.

But in the end, seeing Will’s face when David presented him with a handmade cigar box guitar with a handcrafted neck and head stock that was completely playable with pickups and everything, was worth every minute of frustration. I could not have been more proud when I saw David's face as he handed it over (I would include pictures, but our friends, being childless, dropped by once we were already in bed, so David was in his pyjamas and would kill me for posting pictures of that!). He put his heart and soul into the gift, and into every single thing he makes for the people he loves.

My contribution was making a green felt thingywhatsit to cover the post thing that runs down the neck (see how much technical stuff I learned about guitars through the process?!)


I count myself as the luckiest woman alive because David sat across from me 12 years ago and then answered my text message the next day and I am so thankful!