The Fixer

Sometimes I need to be nudged in the right direction. My wife is good at nudging.  I mean that in a good way of course.  When I want to shrug my shoulders and walk away from adversity, she stands firm.  Not hand-on-her-hip and nagging firm, but rather she allows me to finish my whining, complaining, kicking, and cursing, and then she picks up where we left off.

Recently, our tenant of two years moved out of my old house that we rent out.  By old house I mean where I used to live and that it was built during the Taft administration.  Lately, I’ve spent weekends, evenings, even lunch breaks sweating it out at that house.  Cleaning, cutting the grass, washing the vinyl siding (and cursing the housing market ), while feeling sorry for myself as I missed time that could be spent with my son.  Poor me.

My wife has cleaned and painted, and basically flipped the inside of the house.  She attacks with a fervor of a HGTV host, she’s relentless. I am not relentless...

While she was painting she found a soft spot in the wood that turned out to be termites. I lost it. And while I groused and complained, she called Orkin. She reminded me that if the old tenant hadn’t moved out, the damage would have been worse. 

She sees the bigger picture.  When I curse the house and the responsibilities that come with it, she’s planning ahead, strapping our son to her chest, grabbing a mop, and getting down to business.  I may act like a child sometimes…a lot of times, but I’m man enough to admit when she’s right. And that I’m better because of her.

Our new tenants move in tomorrow and thanks to her touch the house looks amazing. It shines like new again, the termites are gone (hopefully), and the grass is cut. Now I can cut the grass at my house...