A Year of Gratitude – April 2, 2024

The gratitude I share today isn’t new. I didn’t have a realization today that I felt grateful for these things. I know every single day that I am grateful for them.

The first one is right in this photo. No, it isn’t the antique square headed nail, although I love them. So, I guess that I can add them to my gratitude. I do love that I find myself keeping an old house going, that I am the caretaker for this farmhouse that I love, that has stood long enough to have these nails in old wood planks that could tell more than a century’s worth of tales.

The gratitude I meant to share in this photo is for being able to fix things. No, I can’t fix all things. Oh, if only I could. But I would call myself handy. I would say that if you have a problem inside or out, I’m not a bad person to ask for help. First, because I’ll definitely help and secondly because I just might be able to fix what is wrong.

There are definitely tasks that I am better at. I’m better at doing electrical work than I am plumbing. Although, I’ve done my fair share of plumbing projects and there are more on my to do list. I hope to get better at it as I go.

I’m grateful for something far more important than the hammer and square cut nail in this photo. I’m grateful for a father who decided that his only child, who happened to be a daughter, could learn to fix things just as well as a son could. I’m so unbelievably grateful that he did.

He let me tag along and “help” even when I wasn’t much help at all. He let me try to do things even when it meant that he would have to fix what I had done. He took me to the hardware store, a place I still love to go. The smell of fresh cut lumber reminds me of going with him to Handy Andy Hardware when I was a little girl. I always felt so important to be with him at the hardware store, to watch as he hunted through bins of fasteners, placing them in the bag to carry to the checkout.

In my head, I thought he just knew how to do everything. It seemed like he did. I didn’t appreciate until I was much older the time he spent reading maintenance manuals. These were days well before the internet. There was no YouTube. He had to find the information himself. He had to ask friends. He had to consult someone working at the hardware store or lumber yard. I didn’t fully grasp how much time that took. I just honestly thought that he knew how to fix everything.

As I grew up, I came to understand that he didn’t just know how to fix everything, that he had to learn as he went. I could see that he tried to make use of the tools that he had, did his best to reuse leftover supplies from the last project when he could. I saw him make mistakes, take a deep breath, and decide to try again.

I think of that often now. I find myself working on projects here at the farmhouse and using the skills I learned by watching him. I try to assess the problem, take stock of the tools and supplies I have on hand, and make a plan for how I’ll try to handle it. I often need to make use of tools and supplies I have on hand rather than buying the perfect tool or brand new supplies when I can try to make due with what I have.

I count myself grateful each time I take on these projects. I’m so fortunate to have been shown such a good example by both of my parents. I know that everyone isn’t as lucky. I know that many don’t have those warm, fond memories of trips to the hardware store with their dad on a Saturday afternoon.

I’m so grateful that I do have those memories. I’m forever thankful that my dad didn’t decide that his daughter didn’t need to learn how to fix things. I’m glad that he didn’t decide just to run out to the hardware store without me. His trips to the hardware store would have been easier. I wouldn’t have been there to ask him unending questions about each thing he was shopping for. I wouldn’t have been there to ask him to please, pretty please, buy me the little wooden toolbox with the set of kid’s tools inside. I know now that he decided to buy me that toolbox using money that he had set aside for a project, money that he would have to make up by using fewer supplies or not buying that new tool that would make his project a bit easier.

I also know that those sort of memories are the kind that last a lifetime. I carry those memories with me in my pocket each day. And yes, I still have that wooden Handy Andy tool set in the original wooden box. It sits next to my desk all these years later. It reminds me of how lucky I am to have a dad who took the time to teach me the kind of things you don’t learn at school. You learn them by spending Saturday afternoons with your dad.

This post is part of our A Year of Gratitude Series. You can find the introduction, inspiration, and entire year’s gratitude’s posts here.