I have gotten soft and lazy. There was a time in my past that is was nothing for me to grab a sledge hammer and break away part of my driveway that had settled. There was a time that it was nothing for me to mix, by hand, 60 pound bags of concrete, 20 of them in one day, to fix my driveway. When I was a single homeowner, I tackled huge jobs. I remodeled my kitchen, removed a popcorn textured ceiling in a 12 by 20 foot room, and even installed a french drain to prevent my basement from flooding. My house in Birmingham was wonderful, but it was a never ending “TO DO” list. Since money was tight, I had to do as much as I could myself. Thank goodness for the internet!
Fast forward seven years. I am married to a wonderful man who has given me two wonderful children. My life of a stay-at-home mom is pretty glamorous. Sitting around eating bon bons all day really doesn’t leave me much time for manual labor. We have a lawn guy, Abundio. He and his wife are wonderful. Abundio has become our all around fix it guy. We love him!
We had torrential rain last night. I woke up this morning to water coming in our garage. When I went outside to look around, I saw that the french drain was clogged. Tom couldn’t deal with the problem because he had meetings that he couldn’t miss at work. While I took the kids to school, Tom called a guy to come work on the drain. After spending close to $500 in the last couple of weeks on a new sink faucet, and a repairman to work on both the dishwasher and refrigerator, I wasn’t ready to shell out more money for something that I could possibly fix myself.
Tom canceled the drain guy, and I went to work. I was up to my armpit in mud for three hours in the pouring rain, but I DID IT!!! I unclogged that stinking french drain. I am so exhausted, and muscles that I forgot I even had are beginning to ache. I probably won’t even be able to get out of bed in the morning. But I’ll tell you what, the feeling of satisfaction from doing such a difficult task more than makes up for it all.
As wonderful as eating bon bons all day is, I kind of miss the old me some times. She was a tough old girl.