Experience vs. Expertise

Do It Yourself is all the rage now, between HGTV, DIY Network, PBS shows such as Hometime and This Old House. I find the information very useful, but it frightens my husband when I watch them. He is always afraid that I will get 'ideas' - and I do - but he means big ideas. Okay, I admit it, I am addicted to home improvement!

My feeling has always been that it does not hurt to try to do something as long as you have the ability and the funds to get started. I also believe the planning what to do and thinking it through before you start are even more important than 'just doing it.' How are you going to get experience unless you research how something is done and then try? We will never be experts, but we have enough knowledge to determine our limitations - sometimes.

I do pity my poor husband. He will come home from work and I will start to regale him with the information I have found out about how we can do...oh, it does not matter what. He is tired and I know whatever I told him will be quickly forgotten. But he agrees to - whatever - and then when we have the time and I bring it up, I can easily say "I told you about this the other night." I am not playing him, really, but I get excited about the project and the outcome so I tell him as soon as I see him that day. I just have to remember to tell him again in the morning!

You see, this is the influence of my father again. He taught me a lot about how to fix things, especially after my older brothers entered the armed forces and he needed help around the house. "I'm a girl" meant nothing to him, because we could not afford to hire anyone to fix stuff and if he needed someone to carry, hold, lift - and I was it! I grew to find the process of building/repairing things fascinating, which was a good thing, because I was not going to get out of it! Besides, the boys found the work fun, so there must be something to it.

I think I started as a 4 year old, holding a hammer and threatening a nail. My father probably figured it kept me busy and out of his way. Imagine. One day he was on the roof, repairing or re-shingling or whatever - and I thought I could help, so I climbed the ladder! Four years old! My father saw me standing on the roof, so he put me by the chimney, the safest place he could find, and yelled at me not to move until he could get me down. As he went over to the other side of the roof to secure his tools, etc., I saw my mother coming outside to hang clothes. "Hi, Mom," I shouted down to her. I did not know my mother knew those words! My father brought me down, but boy, did she curse him out for having me up there. (I learned later that my mother had a deathly fear of heights.) I kept saying I was only trying to help.

So home improvement means we do the improving, hands on, all that stuff. With limits, like certain electrical, heavy stuff like heaters, some plumbing. Over-our-head means that a project takes longer than one day. My Poor Husband!