Back in the land of home ownership, I knew I’d be working through challenges, and facing them without backup. Thank goodness, I could remember how to be an engineer.
Just before closing the home transaction, I was told that the washer included in the deal was failing during the wash cycle. Would a lawnmower make it okay?
My first reaction was that I didn’t want to be working through challenges of junk removal. If it’s broken, get rid of it, I said.
Luckily, I was talked out of this mindset.
But no worries, I was planning my state-of-the-art laundry room anyway. It was one of the things that I’d missed from my last house and wasn’t able to materialize in my last home (as it wasn’t my house). Five years dealing with a washing machine that would quit because the intake filter would get clogged with the murky lake water. Five years wishing the water system included a filter system.
Now it’s up to me to help myself to happiness. No one is helping me, but with an honest self-evaluation, no one is preventing me from working through challenges either.
The Basement Challenge
It took me a while to go into the basement. The largest spiders I’ve ever seen resided there. The lighting was bad. The ceiling was low, the walls were fieldstone, the windows caked with cobwebs.
In my last home, I woke up one morning with a red mark, and then a red track from that mark, to my vein, up my arm for several inches and then it stopped. I was sure it was a spider bite. My windows were open, with sizeable gaps.
I went to work because I thought I had to, and I decided it was time for new windows. Just after I’d sold, but before closing, a human tried to break in through the window. I was glad that I wasn’t there at the time, because I would have been right there, sleeping with the window open.
Shudder. Such a dangerous thing, hot summers when you want to leave the windows open.
Luckily, during the last five years, I’ve become almost accustomed to spiders. Big ones with long legs and a long body that spin when they see you coming. No worries; they sucked up easily in the Shopvac.
I have a better vacuum now, and these ones are more resistant. You have to get right up on them. One of them crawled back out after I shut it off. Now, I ensure to follow a spider with a lot of debris.
I don’t like spiders, but I’ve separated fear and danger. My grandmother told my sister that she didn’t like spiders and she responded with the helpful information, “You are usually within one meter of one.”
Shudder. My grandmother gripped my arm when she told me.
The Pre-maturely Quitting Washer
I approached the basement Shopvac first, with a super-blinding flashlight in hand. I pointed it high and low, and made a safe zone before proceeding. One safe zone after another, I crossed the basement.
Finally, I made it to the dryer. I opened it to see if all the lost socks materialized. It was empty, but the lint trap was protruding by at least two inches. I pulled it out to realize it was clogged. With the Shopvac, I cleared much lint, possibly ten years worth.
A firetrap, right beside the oil tank.
The oil tank that I could not get insured because leaks are expensive for the insurance company, what with all the environmental damage and potential implications. Out with the oil tank, but more pressing, out with the lint.
On to the washing machine.
I filled it with my white sheets, knowing it might be the last wash. Who knew what might happen? On with my experiment.
When the intake filter gets clogged and the pump is trying too hard, or whatever, it shuts off. It’s supposed to tell you to check the water supply, but some people might just buy a new appliance.
Working through challenges, I switched the water supply from cold to hot, and it ran perfectly. Ha. Not the machine, then.
I shut off the cold water supply, disconnected it, and removed the filter. It looked like it’d been dragged through the mud. I cleaned it and replaced it, and reconnected the hose.
Or I thought I did. When I turned the water back on, it turned my project into a wet t-shirt contest, and I wondered why I was wearing white.
The Locked Studio Door
With fresh sheets, I wanted my clean mattress protector, but it was in my studio. Last week, I’d locked the studio door, assuming that the key that didn’t work in the front door was the key for the studio door.
What a narrow-minded assumption, but no assumption is a smart one.
After trying every key, I realized I did not have the key.
After trying every window, I realized I’d done a good job locking them.
I went to bed, sick about the problem, wondering if a locksmith would even come out this way. Immediately, the next morning, as I transitioned to being fully awake, I remembered my problem with a nauseous feeling in my stomach.
I emailed my real estate agent on the off chance that a key could materialize, but I felt terrible including her in dramas that no longer have anything to do with her.
Between the shame that I didn’t actually test the key adequately, and the guilt that I’d reached out and involved innocent parties to a problem of my own making, I focused on trying to come up with a solution.
Think of a solution? No. Good ol’ left brain already had its go, and it wanted to Google how to pick a lock. Really? Not a good idea.
Intuit a solution? Yes. Good ol’ right brain, raring to go. I walked up and faced the door.
What do you see in the movies when they don’t pick the lock? They slide the credit card in the jamb.
So that’s exactly what I did, in principle anyway, and what led to me pushing open the door minutes later. It was still locked, but it was open. Breaking in without breaking anything.
The Space for Solution
Living in the past is a bad idea, for it’s never coming back and it was never as great as you think it was.
Still, it was great before I locked myself out. It was great to be able to do laundry when I needed to, and that wasn’t my current state.
It’s normal to hem yourself in by seeing only common solutions. Just break something that you were going to replace anyway. Just buy that new washer we all know I want.
I wonder how much stuff lands in the landfill that was perfectly fine, but the owner didn’t realize it. When the weather station that I bought for my ex died, he replaced the batteries. When it didn’t come back to life, it went to the dump. He didn’t know about the required “RESET” button that you’d need a magnifying glass to locate and only could if you knew it was there.
When you are facing challenges, it’s easy to see only the solutions that you’ve heard of before and not see any of the new ones.
It’s like when I’m searching for a key and I look in the same pocket a hundred times because I’m sure that’s where it should be. But it’s not there. It never was.
When I first looked at the house, I couldn’t see inside the studio because someone had locked it and a key couldn’t be found. When I did my final walkthrough, I walked through it. Therefore, I was certain a key was involved and existed.
In retrospect, I think we all broke in without breaking anything, the exact same way.
I think it’s time for new locks.
The Trial and Error
More than one way to skin a cat, he says, and I wish he’d say something much less violent and cringe-inducing. I love my cat. To thread a needle, maybe?
Don’t get me wrong, working through challenges, I wished for a sidekick. After I realized I’d cross-threaded the water supply hose, which caused it to blow off and soak my shirt, I wasn’t sure the second time would be any better.
If there’d been someone to pass the wrench to, I likely would have. I likely have, in my entire history, in the proverbial sense of it. Instead of handing the wheel over to God, I was handing the wheel over to Jesus. Nothing wrong with that, until I heard that Jesus is the man, the regular carpenter, before he became Christ the Saviour. Had I wanted to be rescued by an ordinary man?
Indeed, once I chose a man who said he was a carpenter, but I learned the hard way that he was a con artist.
Through trial and error, we learn, as long as what we learn is to try again. Not to hand it off. Finish it. Do it. Maybe next time, outsource, but now you know the true nature of what to look for in the hiring process. Don’t do it on assumption.
The engineer looks for what works and doesn’t quit until it does. What if there’s no one to save you? No one who could do it better? What would you do if your best was all anyone had? Working through challenges all your own might be your personal mission.
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