The list

I am married to a manly man. Maybe too manly, but Ben takes his role seriously. Mostly it makes me feel very cared for, loved, and cherished. Only occasionally is it aggravating. There are certain things he doesn’t want me to do for the sake of safety, and others where it’s just a matter of man-pride.

He doesn’t want me cutting grass, although the kids and I used to cut an acre and a half with two push mowers when they were tweens and teens. I think this prohibition has more to do with the fact that I ran over an apple tree sapling 30 years ago when we had our first riding mower and he has not yet forgotten. Whatever. He just doesn’t want to share his new zero-turn. I could cut the whole county with that thing.

He doesn’t want me on the roof, although I was once on a roof with him to hold the base of a ladder so he could paint a high spot when I panicked and crawled back to the ladder that led to the ground. You’re on your own, buddy. I don’t argue with this rule.

Last week I climbed up into the back of the F250 to stuff the end of the hose into the 300-gallon water box so we could fill it for the steers. He wasn’t excited about me doing that, and gently asked me to please stay on the ground. Okay, but somebody has to fill the water box next week while you’re away, and I can’t see the top to get the hose in the hole from down here. So I will be ever so careful and make sure I have good footing and a solid hand-hold while I climb up alone. I do argue with this rule sometimes.

He doesn’t like me going to the dump, but if there’s one person in this family who knows how to get rid of stuff, it’s me. If I send Ben to the dump with a truck full of junk, he will come back home with half of it because it might be useful one day. This is why our 1200-square-foot barn is stuffed like Fibber McGee’s closet and we are getting ready to build a second barn. Let me clean it out and I’ll show you how to throw stuff away. My sister-in-law and I were ruthless when we cleaned out my parents’ house earlier this year. The local thrift store loved to see us coming. (Also, somewhere in that barn are all the parts of a $7,000 wood cook stove. Maybe we’ll find them when it gets cleaned out this winter?) So I do as much dump-going as I can while Ben is away. One day our children will thank me.

He doesn’t want me to help paint the house because it’s man’s work—says the man who washes dishes, folds laundry, cooks dinner on Sunday nights, and would do any other household chores I asked him to do. I was allowed to paint all the interior doors while we were building the house, but once that’s done, I have to turn in my paint brush. I might argue this rule in the next few weeks.

In most areas we are pretty stereotypical in our roles, and I’m usually okay with that. But when Ben is going away for a week or more, I see it as an opportunity and I make a list. Here’s what I wrote about my first project, the towel rack:

I have coordination issues with power tools, or maybe it’s that I don’t know the difference between a drill and a driver even though my husband has patiently explained it a hundred times . . . or maybe it’s that there are no fewer than five Phillips (why is this capitalized?) head thingies (what are they called?) to put in the driver (or drill . . . whatever) and how am I supposed to know which one to use?

It sounds easier than it actually turns out to be, but for some reason I do this every time he goes away. Maybe I’m a slow learner.

But as with every house on the planet, there are always little things that need to be done, and I like to handle whatever I can handle on my own. Over the years I’ve gradually gathered a nice little collection of tools and I enjoy getting a chance to use them. I also know where my tools are, in stark contrast to Ben’s. (His only comment on my towel-rack bragging post was “And my Makita magically shows up . . .”) (In my defense, it was in the black hole of his Honda Pilot buried under empty feed bags, where I just happened to be looking for 3” screws.)

I have to wait until he’s gone to do anything though because as soon as he hears a drill (driver—whatever) he comes running to stop me. In his mind, power tools are for men—except for the washer and dryer, mixer, dishwasher, etc. He’s a little more stuck in gender roles than I am.

So for a few weeks before Ben went to Ukraine, I made a list of projects I wanted to do while he was away. The first was hanging the towel rack, which I struggled through but eventually finished. I could have lost all motivation and thrown my list in the trash after that, but one thing you need to know about enneagram nines is that we are the most stubborn of all the types. We just do it quietly.

Not to be deterred, I called Amy (my daugher-in-love) for reinforcement. If you ever need a project buddy, she is your girl. She is full of motivation and also raw-boned strength that comes from growing up on a cattle farm, carrying calves and slinging feed bags and hay bales. And she’s fun and brings four of the grandbabies, so it’s a no-brainer.

Last Saturday she and the kids came over and I brandished my list with renewed vigor. That’s easy to do when you’re borrowing energy from someone 33 years younger. Amy started by throwing three huge cedar logs off the deck (by herself—I am neither exaggerating nor making this up), then stowing them on pallets underneath. Then we moved to the garage where we swept, hung a shelf, rearranged, fought stink bugs, and generally tidied up. I no longer have to use calming techniques when I walk through it.

Then we came in for lunch and that was the now-famous ranch dressing caper. Amy is so strong that one fling of the bottle and there was ranch dressing from one end of the kitchen to the other, but at least she got it all out of the bottle.

Then we tackled the flooring in the new chicken coop, wondering the whole time why it was 80 degrees in November. Did you know your hand makes a great trowel in a pinch? Elijah hung curtain rods and nailed toe kick in place and watered steers. It was a great day all around.

After they all left, I sat down collapsed with my list to move things to the “done” column. So far, here’s what I’ve accomplished (with help on a few):

• Shelves in laundry room

• Hang Daddy’s pencil sharpener

• Towel bar in my bathroom

• Plant garlic

• Clean DR light globes

• Seal countertops

• Fix countertops (don’t believe the lie that black granite has to be sealed annually)

• Bones in box (huge collection of cow bones found in the woods by grandchildren)

• Tub box to barn (because it’s a “good box”) (yes we are 80)

• Weed barrier elderberries

• Logs off porch

• Beach room curtains

• Clean garage

• Nail toe kick

• Floor in chicken coop

• Sweep decks (thank you, grandchildren)

• Vacuum basement

• Stuff out of bedroom closets (where I finally found my DIL’s painting and my staple gun)

My “done” list is now more than three times longer than my “to do” list. I won’t ask you to be impressed; I am doing that for myself.

Then I spoke to Ben on the phone and it seems he has been curating a to-do list of his own. Not surprisingly, his is much longer than mine and includes all sorts of farmly things, but I’m excited that it also has all the little things that have fallen by the wayside since we moved into the house at about 93% done.

I imagine we will combine our lists and tackle the rest together. I’ve had my “fix” of solo home improvement for a while and I’ll gladly go back to sharing my tools (as long as I get them back when the project is done). I hate being needy, but it’s nice to have someone who knows how to operate a drill (driver—whatever).