I suck at gifts

More specifically, I suck at gifts for my husband. ?Which is odd because I love to give gifts and I love my husband. ?You would think it would be easy. ?Trouble is… he has expensive taste. ?I don’t purchase him clothing that often because odds are he’ll return what I purchase. ?He outright told me once that I don’t know how to pick ties. ?Oh hai! ?I have a good sense of color you boob. ?Evidently pink isn’t in his wardrobe repertoire.

I went through a jag of buying him booze for a while. ?Actually, that is my fall back gift. ?Booze and books. ?In my defense, I do buy very fine and expensive liquor.

I like to be creative in my gift giving. ?I had all of my Christmas shopping done last year before December 1st because I did most of it on Etsy. ?My trouble is I can’t shop online for the trusty husband because I use the Paypal account to buy everything. ?It is the one online thing we share. ?We both have 15 email accounts, but we share a Paypal account. ?Technically we shared an Ebay account too, but I wised up on that one this week.

The trusty husband’s birthday is Friday the 13th. ?I just so happened to be browsing Etsy for Christmas ideas because I had the trusty husband’s gift already picked out in my mind. ?I came across something I thought my brother-in-law would like for Christmas and IM’d the trusty husband the link. ?He shot it down, but while I was in that particular search I found a gift that the trusty husband might like. ?However, the gift was a little more than I really wanted to spend. ?The fact that the gift was on Etsy meant someone had handmade it. ?Meaning, I too could make it. ?Being the person who likes to make things difficult I began researching how to make a Cigar Box Guitar. ?As I was browsing the tubes of the internets I received an IM from the trusty husband with a link to a guy who makes cigar box guitars. ?Ironic no?

I began to think I was rather clever. ?That didn’t last long.

The boy and I went to the art store that afternoon to look for unfinished cigar boxes. ?At one time they actually had them. ?We didn’t have any luck. ?The luck got worse when the boy ratted me out at dinner and said, “me and mommy went to the art store to look for a box.” ?Nice kid.

Since I didn’t find the box at the art store I turned to the next logical place (in my mind) to buy a wooden cigar box. ?Ebay. ?Now remember, the trusty husband and I share an Ebay account and all of the notifications go to his email. ?I bid on one really cool box, but lost the auction. ?I thought I was sly and logged into his email account and deleted the notifications. ?I then created my own Ebay account because the logging into his account was rather difficult since he sits at his computer all day. ?I would only have to delete Paypal notifications should I win. ?I then bid on another box, won and as soon as the trusty husband left to go back to work I quickly paid for the box and deleted the Paypal email. ?I was smart. ?Of course I then realized that he was going to be on vacation next week not allowing me to work on said guitar on the sly. ?So that meant I had to get the supplies and whip the thing together on Friday (today) if I was going to have it for his birthday. ?This meant I couldn’t wait for the box that I’d won.

Yesterday I piled the child into the car and we drove all over hells half acre buying the supplies to make aforementioned guitar. ?Good news is I found a really cool Cohiba box at a local cigar store that would work perfect. ?I bought a neck piece at the mega home improvement store. ?I took my limited knowledge of the parts I needed to the music store and the patient guitar tech helped me piece together the mechanical bits I needed. ?I then went to Radio Shit to pick up a piece I needed to make the guitar electric and then to another mega home improvement store to buy glue and a few other bits I forgot at the first mega home improvement store. ?I had everything I needed (except strings because I forgot those) to make my very own electric cigar box guitar. ?Oh, and we don’t have an amp.

I was going to be the awesome wife and I’d finally get a gift right!

That is until the trusty husband came home and told me that if I delete things from his email I need to empty the trash. ?Doh. ?And he did some Ebay searching yesterday and the dumb little box that says “search suggestions based on your history” listed things like guitar bits sold me out.

So for my husband’s birthday… he’s getting a nice build your own cigar box guitar kit (that I get to put most of it together).