Shamed in to action...

My husband fully disclosed early on that he isn't much of a "handyman" when it comes to doing things around the house.  It totally shattered my dream to one day buy an older home and restore/remodel it on our own...

I learned how to do a few things around the house.  Not from my father, he passed when I was just a little girl, but from my mother.

When I was a little girl my family lived in Mexico.  We didn't move back to the states until I was 10 years old.  In Mexico labor is cheap.  All types of labor.  It is a joke, but common knowledge that one does not need to be rich in order to have a maid.  They say "Asta la criada tiene criada".  Even the maid has a maid.

In Mexico it was rare for someone to do their own home maintenance (I don't know how things are now) , but what was totally unheard of was for a woman to do repairs around the house.  If you needed your lawn mowed or wanted to landscape your yard, you hired a gardener.  If you needed a room painted, you hired a painter.  If you had a leaky faucet, you hired a plumber.  There was no "doing it yourself"!!  You called a professional PERIOD. One couldn't go to a Home Depot and get advice or be taught how to do a repair.  Oh... just remembered.  Home Depot has now branched in to Mexico so perhaps the "do it yourself" is not unheard of any more though the store may be there as a supplier to construction companies. (Will have to inquire on that.)

Anyways it was a marvel for my relatives visiting from Mexico to know that my mother leaned how to paint, put up wallpaper, patch up a whole on the wall, knew the difference between primer and paint and mowed her own lawn.  At first I think they felt sorry for us.  Thought we had fallen on hard times and could not afford to hire help.  My mom explained how much more expensive labor is here in the States and that "everybody" did their own home maintenance.  Unless you were super rich it was shameful to hire someone to do basic tasks. I don't think they believed her at first.

Well, back to my husband.  He had been hiding behind the "I don't do repairs" disclosure for a while but this weekend I shamed him in to agreeing to do some "maintenance" to the house.  HIS WORDS...  "Shamed him"

When I voiced for the fifth time how I wanted something replaced around the house and he responded "I don't know how to do that".  I responded back..  "Well, I saw on a website (Home Depot or Lowe's) a video on how to do it and it looks easy."  To which he responded "you have shamed me in to doing it". Now, I was prepared to do the task myself!!  I have been doing simple repairs at every place I've lived.  My only reason for voicing AGAIN that I wanted something replaced was my way of giving my husband notice that I would be making an "out of budget" purchase at the hardware store.

Hmm  now he's done it.  If he thought he had a free pass on home repairs, I've got him now!!  If I can do it, and am willing to give a go (no bluffing) he must certainly help with/do it.  Perhaps the dream of restoring/remodeling an older home is still gone, but at least I can breath easy knowing that my pocket book won't suffer and the house won't fall on top of us out of lack of upkeep.