Robert Earl Keen got it right. It is the little things that piss me off.

We were getting to a point in our house where the list of things that didn’t work was greater than the list of things that did work. Ok, not really, but you know what I mean. Every night I had to look at the hole in the wall that I created in a fit of frustration trying to re-install the curtain rod that Auggie had managed to pull completely out of the wall. I got a little over zealous with the drill and anchors….and well the result was not good. Peter finally stopped me and mysteriously fixed it all (I think there was some glue involved judging by the stain on the curtains…). But the holes and white patch remained.

Similarly, the weather stripping around the back door that had once been painted and was now chipping off was equally as taunting. All of the little things were easy enough to fix, if you had an hour or so of uninterrupted time. Which let me tell you how many of those hours I have.

I lamented to my friend Beth M about it and explained what I really needed was an older relative with a lot of time, know how and love for me who would come and putter around and fix stuff for free. She agreed she too needed such relative and we agreed to start looking through our respective family trees for candidates.

During a full there is too much to do and not enough time in the day Jessie Spano level melt down, I made a decision to just call the handy man and get some of this stuff fixed. Thankfully, our handyman has become family friend too – he’s a great guy who is wildly trustworthy and just really good at fixing just about anything (he just doesn’t work for free – so close to the dream!!). I made Rick a list and turned him loose with a box of paint and weather stripping. Two hours later, he was done, the house was cleaned up and he mentioned that he had fixed about 5 other small things (like the fact our front door wouldn’t stay shut unless it was locked) for me too. And his bill didn’t make me want to throw up, so that was a nice bonus. Thankfully he has known us long enough to know that I’m not entirely insane so when I got so excited about the painted wall, he doesn’t immediately call in the men with the giant butterfly nets and padded rooms.

The moral of the story? Life is too short to live with ugly weather stripping and to loose your sanity by trying to do everything yourself to save a dollar. Throw a little money at the the little stuff and enjoy some playtime with the kids.