Handyman in Training

There are a lot of words I could use to describe my dear husband: loving, kind, caring, helpful, funny, smart, spontaneous, social, understanding...I could list hundreds. Sadly, one word that may never be used to describe this wonderful man is handy. He's just not. I'm not for that matter either. We're quite the useless pair around here actually. If someone can keep up the little repairs, we can keep it clean and organized. But if something needs to be fixed or installed, we are a mess. Marcos has gotten a little bit better from the pressure some of his handyman friends have put on him, but if it's something he actually can do, he usually just doesn't. He HATES a project. I suppose he likes routine too much. When we moved in, I needed brackets to hold up the bar in the middle of the closet (too many heavy clothes I suppose). My brother-in-law installed one while Marcos watched and then told him to just buy another one and put it on the bottom closet shelf the same way. Five years later, I bought one and told him he needed to do it because the dang boards were started to pull away from the wall since we hadn't done it right the first time. Argg.....

If you've read the blog for awhile, you know our life has basically been one nonstop project since early spring. Poor Marcos. His frustration was obvious, but his patience is growing. I was pleasantly surprised at his level head during the last part of the projects we did this past weekend (painting, ripping up the carpet and getting new carpet installed upstairs). Maybe that's the best thing to come out of all this. I, on the other hand, am still running around as impatient as ever waiting for all the final details to be finished. He was exhausted by the time Saturday night rolled around. We were putting furniture back and trying to get everything ready to go to sleep. He'd been working on it hours before while I was keeping the kids away at my mom's house so he was physically drained. I came downstairs to find him sound asleep on the couch. Crap. I was in the middle of washing my blinds and we hadn't hung our curtains yet. How were we supposed to go to bed without blinds or curtains on the windows? So I got out the handy dandy drill and went to work installing the curtains myself. The screws were cheap and started to strip, some of the screws needed anchors because they were in drywall and others were in the wood. Blah! I know, it sounds simple to most of you, but I was so frustrated measuring and drilling and redrilling and anchoring and stripping (the screws that is). But I was so proud. I did it...all by myself.

Cut to today. Once again, I'd asked Marcos to help me put up the little hooks that hold back the curtains. They're those black out curtains so if you don't tie them back, my bedroom is pretty much dark all day long. We've had a rough morning around here and I was sick of waiting for everything...so I just so I threw caution into the wind and went for it. I'm pretty sure those hooks are there for good since I completely stripped those stupid cheap screws in the process, but I now have two hooks that look fairly level holding back my curtains. Was it easy? No. Somehow I feel like I need three hands when I'm trying to drill stuff. I must be uncoordinated. And it doesn't help that my handyman helpers consist of two young, mischievous little boys. It was definitely an unanticipated obstacle keeping them away from the power tools while I measured and remeasured again. But it's done. And it looks decent. So if you stop by the house and notice something is slightly off, just ignore it. I'm still in training. :)