Dear Diary,

This past weekend I toiled away all day every day putting up crown molding in Brody’s soon to be nursery.  Diary, I must be honest with you (am I ever not?), it was not a lot of fun.  Where should I begin as I tell you about it?   Was it my woefully inadequate tools that made this seemingly simple task so difficult?  My serious lack of any carpentering experience?  My ‘I do it my own self’ attitude?  Perhaps it was all three.

Regardless of WHY, lets just say that I was barely up to the task of getting this job done (and even that remains to be seen once it is painted – Leah is skeptical).  Out of concern for you my dearest Diary I wanted to give you some tips should you ever need to install crown molding.

What to do when your wife asks you to install crown molding:

1. Refuse.
2. Seriously, you do not want to take this on.
3. Divorce is easier than crown molding.

What to do if you cannot convince your wife that you don’t need crown molding:

1. Cutting:
   • If you do not have a power miter saw, RENT one.  If you do have one, its probably not nice enough anyway, rent a more expensive one.  Only the mentally challenged attempt to use a hand saw.  Also, hire someone to operate said power saw.
   • Do not use your child’s changing table as a work bench.  Shockingly, a 3ft wide table doesn’t work well for cutting 8ft long pieces of wood.  Instead, hire someone who has a workbench.
   • Wood?  Yes, do not buy wood ‘composite’ crown molding.  Cheaper?  Sure! Huge headache?  Abso-freaking-lutely!  If you are concerned about cost, stop now.  You will only succeed in taking 10 years off your life expectancy.  Instead, hire someone to buy your wood for you.
2. Attaching to the wall:
   • Do not fit inside corners with 2 45 degree angled pieces.  No corner in your house is angled at 90 degrees.  None.  Instead, fit one piece flush and cope the other fitting piece.  Coping is a very simple process (they would have you believe) sure to only take you 4 hours per corner.  Hire someone.
   • Do not attempt to use a nail set to get your nails below the wood surface.  Instead of holding a tiny nail set and trying to hit the center of a nail head that is < 1/8 of an inch wide, rent or buy a nail gun.   Also, hire someone to use the nail gun.
   • Do not attempt to attach the wood to the wall without someone helping you hold it.  Instead, hire 2 people.  One to hold and one to nail (gun).
3. Fixing your mistakes:
   • If you have taken my advice so far, you won’t have any mistakes.  If you haven’t, hire someone to fix your mistakes.

So my dear diary, in summation, installing crown molding is as simple as hiring 7 men, renting/buying hundreds of $$ of power tools and buying the most expensive material you can find.  But don’t worry, I’m sure it will increase the value of your home by at LEAST $50.

Great blogs have great names. Right? I’ve always thought so at least. I suppose they have great writing as well however thats simply not something I am capable of, so I’ve decided instead to woo the internet reader via a catchy title. I know, some of you are already thinking to yourself as you look at the top of the page ‘and thats what he came up with??’. In short, yes. In long? Well, lemme splain.

In searching for the perfect blog title many great candidates crossed my mind. Real winners like “It has a certain je ne sais quoi”, “This title will never be as good as my wife’s”, or my personal favorite “Weird Al Rocks”. Each of these was passed through the Wife Filter. Men know this filter (married men at least). We take everything we think of as awesome, submit it to the Filter, and out comes what is ‘actually’ awesome – i.e. nothing. Its a pretty sweet piece of technology. Take those above promising blog titles; each was fed into the filter, along with countless others, and rejected, along with countless others (the last never spoken aloud for approval – it’s fate already known).

Anywho, let me get back on topic. As these titles kept getting shot down I suggested the eventual title for this blog, “My wife made me pick this”. Naturally of course this too was eaten by the filter. “What? No. What does that even mean?” she asked. A valid question I suppose, given that she is not privy to the genius that is my brain. “Exactly,” I said, “It’s circular!”. Looking back at it, I’m not sure it DOES make sense (it did at the time, but thats how genius works isn’t it?). It doesn’t matter now though. I love it. I think it has a certain je ne sais quoi.