Why God And My Handy Man Totally ROCK

Subtitle: Things I've Done That Will Make You Feel Much Better About Yourself

A couple of weeks ago, I started having water pressure problems in my house. They would come and go. But it got consistently worse. Right around the time I noticed the water pressure issues, I was putting top soil down on my lawn, patching up bald spots or filling in low lying places hidden in the grass.

A couple of days after putting down the top soil, I noticed that a large patch always seemed damp while the rest of the patched spots were lighter colored and very dry. Hmmm. I noticed a large strip of yard between my house and my neighbor's that was constantly wet. Ugh.

I gave it a week to fix itself. If you ignore it and don't talk about it, it will go away. Yes. This theory has rarely worked for me. So by yesterday, I was pretty convinced I was looking at a broken pipe somewhere. Possibly in my house, maybe next to it, maybe the sprinkler system. I didn't know. But I could see big dollar signs. And it was making me sick.

Last night I said, "Please God. Let it be something small. Let it be something we can handle quickly without huge drama and huge cost!" But even as I prayed this, I thought, this may be one of those life lessons God needs me to learn. Suck it up, little girl. You're a grown up now. Sometimes you have to pay for grown up repairs. Guh.

This morning, I finally called my friend Wyatt. He's been my "Bug Guy" and handy man since we moved here. He and his wife and daughters are awesome friends and I adore them on many levels. They were some of the first close friends I made at my church. But mostly because Wyatt will come take care of ants, termites, field mice, etc. Blyeck! And he also fixes stuff without charging me an arm and a leg. He doesn't mind when I chick out on things (like trying the ignore-it-and-it'll-go-away thing). He doesn't judge. He just shows up and fixes whatever is wrong. And since the ex took off, Wyatt and his awesome wife Shari have kind of kept an unspoken eye on me. They'd probably deny that but I know they have.

Anyway, I called and said, ok, how much do you know about plumbing? Or do you have a plumber you work with that you trust? I told him what was going on. He made a promise to show up today. This is a guy I called last minute, with a full slate. And he insisted he'd check it today. Because - he reasoned - if it really IS a broken pipe that's leaking, I am wasting lots of money that I don't have. See? He's very protective of his single-mom, laid-off friends.

Wyatt and one of his guys showed up this afternoon with a pick axe and shovel. I felt nauseated. Pictures of my entire yard dug up with hundreds of broken pipes exposed raced through my head. He checked my sprinklers and pretty quickly ruled out that the sprinkler pipes were burst. Yay! He checked the outside faucet and found huge pressure. He checked the inside faucets and found low pressure. "When's the last time you changed your water filter?" Um...says me...I didn't really want to tell him that I was basically 2 months past the changing time. I'm never that bad! So he pulls out my water filter. It was BROWN. Might mean nothing to you if you don't have one. But I've never seen it like that. So basically, my laziness caused my water filter to get so clogged, water couldn't get into the house! Fortunately, I had INTENDED to change the filter. This intention meant I had actually purchased the filter back in January when it should have been changed. So I had the filter. And Wyatt is tall and can change it very easily. As opposed to my Hobbit-on-a-step-stool routine. So bippity-boo and I have a clean filter.

Did I feel totally stupid? Absolutely. Did I care? NO. You know why? Because I was figuring I'd be using somewhere upwards of $10K to have my entire sprinkler system replaced! If not, I knew I'd be throwing a couple of thousand at whatever the problem was. But I already had the 20-something dollar filter on hand. And Wyatt wouldn't take any payment. As he put it, he had to drive this way anyway.

So God rocks because he TOTALLY came through on my "please make it something small" prayer. I hadn't even asked for FREE! And he sent my awesome friend Wyatt to show me how easy the fix was and not make me feel stupid about it.

I have to figure out something yummy to make for Wyatt & Shari.