I'm a Chicken

After all the lumber runs to DBS this past week, I'm finally ready to start building the worktable for the garage. So today, I finally unpacked the miter saw that Santa gave me for christmas.  This will provide me with a good segue to describe my love/hate relationship with power tools and why I have it.

You may never guess this from my housewifey exterior, but in real life, I'm actually a very accomplished woodworker/builder. I spent my first years out of college as an apprentice at a noteworthy San Francisco antique restoration company and then got a Master's degree in Fine Arts from RISD in their furniture design department .

So, for example, I designed and built this ladies desk (and the bench next to it, for that matter),

and cut this joinery, by hand, no joke.

So, I've been around a lot of machinery and power tools and I really know how to use them. I've also seen more than a couple injuries, like bad ones, and I've had a few scary close calls, myself. So basically, when it comes down to it, I'm very nervous around power tools...I'm terrified of cutting off a finger or making hamburger meat out of it. On the other hand, I am ridiculously capable of using a chop saw, safely, and get serious satisfaction out of building stuff. There you have it...love/hate. Do your power tools ever give you sweaty palms too?