Giving Up and Letting Go

Last night, when I got home, Brett was working in our shower again. The cold knob was slipping, and the hot knob was so royally screwed up that it wouldn't turn off completely. I can't really say how I felt when I saw him sitting there with the toolbox. Not great, that's for sure. I had cleaning the bathroom on the agenda last night, so I set about to do that while he was working. He eventually got it tight enough to turn off, and went to calm down a bit. Then, I cleaned the shower, and i turned on the cold water to rinse it out. And when I turned the water off, the knob slipped. I wanted to sit down in my non-functional shower and cry. He came in, he replaced the square thing for what seems to be the millionth time (and which I'm told is actually the fourth) and we both told ourselves we wouldn't put as much force on the knobs.

Then, at 3:30 am, I heard Brett get out the tool box. No, he wasn't inspired in the middle of the night, that's when that crazy person goes to work. He'd washed his hair, and he couldn't get the water to turn off. Again. In frustration, and needing to get to work,he just took the knob off and shut it off with the fliers. And when I got up, bleary eyed to see what was wrong, I made a decision.

We're not plumbers.

Sure, we're not painters, or decorators, or landscapers, and we've done all of those things. We're not tilers or carpenters or builders, and we plan to do those things as well. But we are not, nor will we ever be plumbers. We have done everything we can think of, short of replacing the stems. And we don't have the tools we need. Buying the special tools and buying the parts we need would cover the cost of a professional, so we're taking it out of our hands.

I called a plumber this morning and he's hopefully at my house as we speak, fixing my shower. And it sucks, because in one month we've had our house treated for termites, replaced the battery in my car, called a plumber twice and an air conditioning repairman once. That's over a thousand dollars in unforeseen expenses, almost all of them being house related. If we were renting, we wouldn't have paid for any of it.

But at the end of the day, I go home to a home that I own (well, that I own a tiny percentage of). A home that I can paint and decorate any way I see fit. A home that holds my husband and our three wonderful cats, all of our favorite things, and that will eventually hold babies and then children.

And today, when I get home from work, I hope I'm greeted by a smiling husband, three happy kitties, my lovely in-laws (who will be arriving for the weekend any minute) and a shower that I can turn on when I'm dirty, and turn off when I'm clean.

I don't think that's too much to ask for.