HomeCrazzyHome

One of the biggest challenges for me is…

Learning When To Give Up!

As the mother of an 11 year old daughter with high-functioning Awe-tism…this is one of my favorite movie montages…

One that we have lived for sooooooooooooooooo long that it just seems natural.

But sometimes there are jobs out there that are just big. That you lack the skills. The time. Or the tools to do.

Well, around this #HomeCrazzyHome anyway.

But for someone with my mentality knowing and accepting that is not always easy.

Of course…sometimes you have no choice. Not just as the parent of an awe-tistic child but most of the DIY skills I have acquired over the decades were out of necessity. I mean I have changed broken glass in windows, crawled under houses to reconnect sewage pipes and of course painted and redecorated too many times to count.

Out of necessity…because it was beyond my means to hire someone to do the job. And most of those were pre-internet…so I actually had to read books, ask friends to help or just go with trial and error.

BUT that is NOT the case now. And while this house can be a money pit…so we do still need to do as much as we can ourselves…and besides it does give me a sense of pride to decorate a room myself.

It takes wisdom then to know when to DIY and when to call in the pros.

Of course, things like the re-wiring and gas are no brainers. But painting and tiling my kitchen? Clearing out the gardens that have been let go for so long? Those take a bit more discernment.

Of course, the old saying…time is money!

And I do have Cookie Monster to pamper, an awe-tistic child to home educate and blogs to write. In addition to ALL the other things around this #HomeCrazzyHome that I CAN do.

So sometimes it just makes sense to give up…and give over a job to a professional who knows what they are doing…and has the right tools to do it.

Yesterday was one of those times…in my beloved kitchen.

But giving over my kitchen was a hard one…after all…in this #HomeCrazzyHome…

But I sure am glad now that I did. Not only can our builder do it faster than I could have…so I can have it functional and my cooker operational…and this house begin to feel more like a HOME.

But yesterday showed the limits of my abilities.

I had ordered these tiles off of Amazon for a splash back behind the stove and along my counter tops. I had gone with the type of mosaic ones on a sheet. The easy ones where you just cut between the mesh between the blocks to size and shape, slap some grout on the wall and call it a day. I did those because I knew I lacked the tools or the experience to cut real tiles.

I had measured it all and done my math to figure out how many I would need. I had I thought even added a bit extra. And at first it looked that way even to my builder. Then it all went…teats up…as they said.

Not only had I not ordered enough…

But Amazon no longer had them in stock…and did not know when they would get anymore…

And all after calling all around and even going to one of the shops…NONE of the stores in town had any.

In short…a right old mess.

Then I thought of the stock pile of old tiles that came with the house…just stacked in the basement. So I went down there and found some white ones. I asked our builder…could we use these behind the stove and mix them in with the others around the counter tops? He said we could.

And together we fiddled with the idea until we came up with this…

Pretty good, right? Almost looks like we planned it that way?

The thing is…I could not have done this. And I knew it. I lacked both the tools and the skills to make it work. He did not!

Lesson learned!

I am so looking forward to the final product. And it has given me the opportunity to move on to other projects…like cleaning and organizing the Gaming/Art/School room…our bedroom. Things that I do have the skills and tools to do…WELL.

Besides this was not so much a case of giving up…as giving over to someone who could do it better…and faster. 

So thank you, Julian…for all the effort and patience with my #HomeCrazzyHome.