Monday, April 26, 2010

Celebrating Life's Little Accomplishments

You see, I have this slight "problem" although it's a good problem to have. I have a husband who can do just about anything, who's very efficient, knowledgeable and the like. I don't have to do anything mechanical or fix anything because I know he'll know how to do it and will do it right. The words "Hey Hon, can you come help me fix this?" slide off my tongue all too quickly and easily. He'll come to my aid without complaint. Therein lies my "problem". I'm basically a "duh" when it comes to doing that sort of thing.

This past weekend we went camping to Moab with our kids and a few other families. (To see pictures, click here)

When planning the weekend, we tossed around our different options of which day to leave on and how to go about getting there. Since Hubby works an hour west of where we live and Moab is 3 hours west of us, it was decided that he would hook up the camper on Wednesday night, I would pick the kids up from school on Thursday afternoon and then we'd make our way west to pick him up from work.

I gulped, nodded and decided I'd be a "big girl" about driving with the camper attached to the 'Burb. I never "have" to do it so I wasn't super comfy with the idea although I knew it wasn't much different than driving without it.

We made it down to his work all in one piece. I breathed a sigh of relief as I handed the keys off to him and happily hopped into the passenger seat. It wasn't so bad after all.

On the way home, we did the same thing. When we got to his work, he hopped into his car and drove it home while I followed, driving like a granny, with the 'Burb and camper.

He, obviously, reached home ahead of us and as I pulled into our development, I was determined to try back it into our driveway all by myself. Backing up a trailer has never been on my list of items to accomplish (why should I do it when it takes him 3.5 seconds to get it in perfectly?), but I swallowed the urge to ask for help and just go for it myself.

Never mind that the whole neighborhood was watching.
Never mind that I had to correct and recorrect my angles 17 times.
Never mind that I knew which way I had to turn the wheel, it's just that the trailer wasn't cooperating.
Never mind that the area I had in which to back up in was quite large.
Never mind I had a full Peanut Gallery behind me saying things like:
"The trailer is going the wrong way."
"Can't you just go get Dad to do it?"
"It's still going the wrong way."
"Do you even know what you're doing?"
"Ack! You're going to run over that green thing!" (the electrical box, which was about 3 feet away)
"Hey, Mom! You're getting closer!!"
"Look Mom! It's actually on the driveway and not in the rocks!"
"Yay!!! You did it Mom!"
Never mind that it took me 10 minutes.
Never mind that it wasn't exactly straight.
Never mind that it wasn't all the way back to the garage door.
I did it and that's all that matters!!

After much finagling, I even managed to get it unhooked from the trailer hitch this morning.

I'm not sure where this accomplishment will get me in life, but I do know that I can't ever say now that I don't know how to do it. It's just a matter of how "pretty" the whole process will be. :)

No worries, Hubby. Even thought I managed this task, I'm not getting rid of you anytime soon. You're still way too valuable to my well being! :)

1 comment:

Karen said...

LOL I had to back in our boat once. That was one too many times for me! My mom would find camping spaces that she could pull into or go to the next campground. LOL