Life Lessons

Life is funny sometimes. When I was a teenager, I never thought my life would be the way it is now. No, I am not complaining. It's just funny how life happens sometimes. You really just have to take life as it comes and learn everything you can from challenges and situations.

One thing I have learned from my situation that I may not have learned otherwise is that I am very capable of doing things I never expected to have to do myself. For example, I am surprised at how many challenges in my house that I am capable of fixing or improving. I mow my own lawn; I put up my own Christmas lights; I installed my own blinds in my windows and I helped my co-worker do the same in his house; I fixed my front door frame that was cracked and weathered by sanding off the old paint and repainting it (my sister helped with the first coat), then painting some of the accent areas on the front of the house the same color; I built most of my furniture in my house (you know the ones that come in those build-it-yourself kits); I shampooed my own carpets; etc. Here's some proof of a couple of things:

• Building my new lawn furniture I bought for $40 at K-Mart (originally $400, but they were having a 90% sale! Thanks, Anne, for the tip!) This one was easy, since it was just a few large screws that needed to attach top to bottom, but I did have to use my leg to balance the chair while I screwed it in place. It was pretty funny. I also built the the DVD case and the TV stand in the background, but I don't have before and after pictures of those since I built those a few years ago.

• Here is the before and after picture of the front of my house. Notice the accent colors around my window and garage door that I added when I painted my front door frame. Its subtle, but it adds a lot I think.
  

It really is quite fulfilling to be able to do things yourself and to help others as well. I help my parents with things in their house now. It is neat to be able to go over there to set up their very intense entertainment system or install a handicap bar on the toilet or set up my mom's new laptop computer or help paint the walls in their house or set up the VCR programmer for shows my mom wants to tape (yes, we still live in the VCR world...we haven't moved to the digital era yet) or help put up Christmas lights on their very tall house (two story) or help snake out the wet lint from the pipe on the roof to the wash machine drain or whatever else comes up and they need help with. I enjoy being able to give something back to my parents for all they have given me over the years.