oh, little white desk.

A couple of weeks ago as I was driving into our cul-de-sac, a pretty little white desk sitting curbside at our neighbour's house caught my eye. I peeled into our driveway, grabbed David, and nearly ran over to the house a few doors down to see if I could snag this baby for myself. Ever since school ended for the semester, I've had just a bit of time on my hands. So I read design blogs. And dream about things to fix and distress and repaint and create. Incessantly, actually. (A good indication that you're officially obsessed is when you literally fall asleep at night thinking about colour schemes and refinishing techniques.) So you can imagine my delight when the owners of this cute-as-a-button little piece of furniture happily told me that she was all mine. I think I may have actually clicked my heels together. Free? And with so much character? My design dreams were finally coming true!

David and I and chatted a few minutes longer with our neighbours until he and the neighbour's son decided to carry the desk down the street to our backyard. Now I didn't mention that our dog, Jasper, had tagged along with us and was up until this point, happily (and obediently) prancing around and enjoying his off-leash freedom. As David lumbered away with the desk, he asked me to grab Jasper because he saw another dog coming toward us. Part gleeful and high on my new treasure, and part distracted by my conversation with the neighbour lady, I half-heartedly grabbed hold of Jasper's leash, thinking I had a good grip on him. Um, nope. Turns out the little lovemuffin had the hots for this cute Golden Retriever and literally bounded toward her. Sad part is I was still attached to him. My fingers were caught under his collar, my flip-flopped feet weren't fast enough to keep up with his ever increasing speed, and I just didn't have time to think of an escape route! Jasper kept running, I kept dragging, and finally my fingers unlatched and I flew threw the air, landing - get this - face-down on the pavement. Yes, my friends, I literally flew. And yes, face-down. All I heard were gasps from the neighbour, her grown daughter, and the owner of this cursed Golden Retriever, who by this time, had a front row seat to my personal little gong show. "Are you OK? Your poor knees! Oh my goodness, grab the dog!" I heard, as I lay face-planted on the road. I flipped over on to my back so that I didn't look like I was dead or something, but that only elicited more consolations - my personal favourite being from my loving hubby from way down the street, arms full o' desk: "Hun, are you OK? What happened?!" I jumped up, awkwardly trying to feign off embarrassment and murderous feelings toward my dog, brushed off my hands and knees, and used this humiliating moment as a sign that I needed to "discipline my dog" and head home.

To quote my head-shaking Italian grandpa: "Mamma mia." I mean, I've had embarrassing moments but this was one of those only-happens-in-the-movies kind of things. Initially I was pissed at Jasper, but really, it wasn't his fault for following his instincts. And honestly, it could have been so much worse. Miraculously, I only scraped the palms of my hands which, for the record, are excellent fall-breakers should you ever find yourself needing to use them for that purpose. Also, if they're anything like me, I'm positive the neighbours had a good laugh about the whole sordid scenario later on. In fact, I hope they did, because I'm still giggling about it. (Is it wrong that I find people getting non-critically injured funny?) And let's be honest, I got a pretty sweet deal out of the whole thing. A free antique desk for the very low price of one pride-snuffing nose dive in front of a bunch of strangers? Sure! Why not?

As I refinish this little work of art, time will tell whether or not she was, in fact, worth the all the trouble. Keep ya posted.