Back in Aussie-land, Mitch and I both worked full time and so I always left fixing these types of practical things up to him seeing as both of us were lacking spare time. Nowadays, I'm a proud to be a housewife - a busy busy housewife mind you, I'm forever cooking, cleaning, entertaining and chauffeuring but seeing as I don't work, I've taken on things I would never have considering breaking a nail over in Australia - and so 'handy Lu' has emerged.
Now rid yourself of all stereotypical handy man visions here - this handy lady does not sport a charming plumbers behind or wear a sawdust covered toolbelt. No, this handy lady is usually seen in a dress, tights and boots, armed with fabric scissors, sticky tape and a knitting needle. Although, I do wish I had a trendy hammer - like one my fellow housewife and I spotted last week while shopping during our housewives conference - it was pink and flowery and oh-so-pretty...
Anyway - I've become a bit of a pro lately at dealing with repairmen, landlords and learning how to fix things. The vacuum cleaner is now securely sticky taped together (it works a treat!) while awaiting replacement parts... I've also perfected the art of grabbing a towel and running out to the hot water cupboard (situated in our kitchen beside a typically Dutch HUGE curtain-less window, no less) and re-setting the hot water system (after it died 2 minutes into every shower - only showers had when I was home alone and had no Mitch to go fix it for me of course) in record time before any of the traffic on our busy street noticed the soggy cranky Aussie girl in the window...
I also attempted to translate the washing machine manual (which although it was in Dutch, I probably would still have required a translation if it was in English - me and manuals just don't mix) when it suddenly died and made a terrifying humming noise - ended up having Mitch google chat me through searching for the problem, which I'm ashamed to admit was just that our landlady's boyfriend had disconnected the water supply when removing our old dishwasher the previous day - I had a red face when I figured that one out..
Yesterday morning I got up and discovered the hot water cupboard - also our supply cupboard for plastic bags (I now keep all reasonable plastic bags seeing as you have to PAY for them here!!!!), toilet rolls and the like - was extremely soggy. It started with a drip out of one pipe and within an hour was steadily dripping from all sorts of random places that didn't look like water should ever drip out of. After attacking it with paper towel and wondering if sticky tape would also be a suitable solution for this problem, I had to hang up my imaginary tool belt and contact our landlady. Within hours, a real life handy man from the energy company was here (who was grumpy and didn't speak a word of English unlike the rest of the country, except for the word 'yellow' - when his gesturing angrily towards the yellow sponge in the sink didn't work on me, he muttered yellow until I handed it to him) and hopefully fixed the problem - so far, the cupboard is bone dry. Here's hoping it stays that way...
After the past weeks of releasing my inner handyman, I'm pleased to say I finally have a real result on one of my broken appliances - A BRAND NEW DISHWASHER!!!!!!!!!!! It's amazing what makes my day nowadays. I'm a bit in love with my new dishwasher - it's shiny, smells new and has all sorts of exciting compartments for carefully stacking my dishes in. I'm also pleased to say it has a timer so I can now set it to go off during off-peak electricity hours - ah, the 'cheap' Dutch are rubbing off on me (in the best possible way of course)...
So, with my hands now being freed of dirty dishwater, a verdict has been reached on the To Paint vs Not To Paint case - I think an afternoon with some hot pink nail polish is in store for me :-)
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