My Husband... the Greatest Fixer in the World!

The past week Reid has been outdoing himself with being extra handy around the house!

First up... the first-ever blacksmithing project that he has completed exclusively for me (if you don't count the chain that he made me when we were dating... not exactly sure what I was supposed to do with an iron chain, perhaps it was symbolic?). Awhile back I mentioned some of the things on my "wish list" from Reid. This past Sunday, he hung up the first project (all seven sets of them in the living room).

(This is three of the sets... yes, we have a lot of windows in our living room)


Aren't they pretty???

He actually designed them to have the curl go up, but I like them going down... He said that was fine as I'm the decorator, it just means they'll be upside down :)

Posing with his artwork.

Next, we've been trying to not drive the Mitsubishi after the sun goes down because a few weeks ago we discovered that one of the headlights was burned out. I bought a replacement (again several weeks ago)... and then I waited for the headlight fairy to come and put it in place for me. Guess what? The headlight fairy visited our house on Sunday too! (and just for the record said fairy wants to take it up with the makers of the 1998 Mitsubishi because apparently you have to take the battery out of the car in order to replace the front left headlight... I know, pretty dumb).

Reid saying, "This is the one!"

And finally... we were lying in bed Sunday morning and Reid asked me "What do you want for your birthday?," which I'm sure all of you know is coming up in April (what it's not marked on your calendars?). I thought about it for a split second, and said "I want our dishwasher to work." You see, when we did our house inspection (almost a year ago to the day) the water wasn't connected to the dishwasher. We, in our house-buying naivete, said "Don't worry about it. I'm sure it works just fine." And when we turned the water on the first time, it did indeed run... water all over the kitchen floor. Now, since we had used our small amount of financial resources to purchase the house that goes around the dishwasher we did not call a repairman right away. Instead we put it on our "to do" list... a year ago. In the meantime, we washed all of our dishes by hand and used the dishwasher as a very expensive dish drying unit.... drip drying unit.

Well, Sunday was a busy day for Reid. We started house cleaning and he decided that rather than just clean the kitchen, he would take apart the dishwasher. Now mind you, my husband is a very handy man but has no knowledge about dish washers (or really any other kitchen appliance). So... to say that I was skeptical would be a bit of an understatement. In fact, I had visions of having to call the repair man to come fix whatever was originally broken AND whatever Reid managed to misplace. I now, with great humility, admit that I was unduly unsupportive. He figured out (in less than an hour) what part was broken, got online, ordered said part and waited until today for it to arrive. When I walked in the door from work, he was on his hands and knees, leaning under the dishwasher and replacing the offending part. I am now busting at the seams with joy that our dishwasher is running through an entire cycle and as of this posting, is not leaking out onto the floor!

I just heard from the kitchen "It's working! I am the man!"... perhaps too many successful house projects might go to his head? It's a risk I just have to take.

I told him that if this is the response I get to requests on my "to do" list when it's a birthday present, how many more things can I cross off the list before April? Weather-stripping the kitchen door, here we come! And I won't even ask him to put a bow on it!