Handyman Extraordinaire

Try not to focus on Landon in this picture but on what's in the background...the BLINDS. As we've been in this moving process, we've wanted to be so careful about accepting FREE help from people. I've seen way too many pastors take crazy advantage of people because they think their position is so important....like if you are helping them personally you are helping Jesus or something. I can even remember one time after a hurricane, when I was at Wise Equipment, one of the pastors in town walked in, and bypassed the entire line of people (which was all the way out the door of the shop since it was after the hurricane), and then just stood there at the front by the counter. Finally, Dad said, "Hi So and so (uh, he said the real name)." And the man said, "Hey, I was hoping you could just go ahead and help me - I only have something small." Well, in my opinion, if you are the pastor at a church, just to clear any question up in anyone's mind, you should be willing to get in the VERY BACK of the line. Just to be clear that you don't think you deserve any kind of special treatment. So, at first, I didn't want us to accept ANY help from anyone who would not let us pay them for their help. But, maybe the Lord's been teaching me some stuff, because you know, a lot has happened, and we just really needed some help. After coming into the house and staying that very first weekend, we realized how disgusting it was - it was really dirty. Not dirty like someone made it dirty, but just dirty like a new construction house that was never cleaned and now sat for over a year. I knew we needed Ms. Diane to come clean it for us. I didn't want to ask her, even though she'd offered, because I was afraid she wouldn't let us pay her. But, I was desperate - we just couldn't do it all, and we really needed help. So, Ms. Diane came. I tried to talk to her about sending her a check, but she told me she would just rip it up and I could write VOID on it. Then, we had a blinds situation. The house has 19 windows downstairs (not counting any of the glass doors - there are 6 of those). Well, we needed to put up blinds. Especially after we stayed there the first weekend and could barely use the bathroom with nothing on the windows. So...we have a couple in the church Mr. Steve and Mrs. Karen, and Mr. Steve is a handyman (he may have a fancier name than this, but I'm not sure). I think he has done remodeling kind of stuff, etc. for years and he is crazy talented. From the beginning, they offered to come and measure the windows and put our blinds in. They said they really wanted to do it for us. Well, I didn't want them to. I knew they wouldn't want us to pay them, and I felt like we could do it ourselves. Well, we couldn't. It was just too overwhelming. So, Mr. Steve measured the windows, bought the blinds, and installed them all (he even adjusted the bottoms to fit the windows exactly - hello). He happened to install them on the day internet was being hooked up, and he helped with an outlet situation they had, found a slight leak in the crawl space and fixed it, and probably more, but I can't remember. We did at least write him a check for the blinds he purchased for us. Then we had a door lock situation two days ago. They recommended to us that we rekey the locks because the house was a foreclosure. Well, the locks are Callan locks. They do not sell them at Home Depot or Lowe's. When I found them online, I was afraid I would not choose the right finish. I had taken a couple of pictures, but it was hard to tell anything. I contacted the Delaney company who makes Callan locks. Those people were so helpful. I sent the pictures to a customer service person and she told me what the finish was. Here's what they look like:
Okay, so also, I wanted to get keyed deadbolts since all the doors are glass. The locks came last week and were perfect. Alright, I haven't blogged about this yet (I'm saving it for its own post) but Landon broke his hand last week. So, Landon decides it would be a good idea for him to try to change the lock on the front door himself. Well, first he puts it in and the key won't come out. Then he tries to fix it (and my hand is FREEZING OFF because I'm trying to help him hold it) and now the door won't lock at all. Landon is pretty good at doing stuff like this, but with a broken hand, it doesn't take much to get to a pretty high frustration level. So...we called Mr. Steve. He came right over and fixed it. It took him a little bit to get it lined up right - he says those locks can be tricky. So, that's another thing he's done for us. He did need some boxes though when he came by to help us with the locks, so we were able to give him some - we were so happy to get to do something (even if it was dumb) for him. And, Mrs. Karen said he loves our crawl space and would like to grow sweet potatoes under there - I told her to tell him to come on! He can do whatever he wants under the house!! I don't really know what the point of this is except to say....I really want us to be careful about taking advantage of people. I don't want to be like that. Yet, with me being pregnant and Landon's broken hand, we've needed some help. Our church family has been AMAZING. I've got a running list of all the people who have helped us and I want to have over for dinner. God has been very, very good to provide so many people just in the exact areas we've needed help the last few weeks.