Taking Care of Business

One thing I've found difficult in widowhood is that I have to take care of everything with no-one (in the house) to fall back on for advice or to share in the responsibilities. Consequently, I find I'm often flying by the seat of my pants and hoping I've made the right decisions.

I picked up my car yesterday from the body shop and it looks excellent. I don't know how that man was able to match the paint on a 6 year old car but he did. When you consider how much sun the paint has been exposed to because I spend winters in Florida, it must have suffered at least some fading.

He found a lot of Bondo (not sure if that's how you describe it) at the top of the hood by the windshield and thought that spot might have been damaged by a rock at some time. His workmanship was beyond expectations and the hood looks like new.

Later in the afternoon I had a rental water heater installed. I wasn't sure how old the existing one was (found out it was 21 years old!!!) but worried it might rust out and ruin my new floors in the basement so decided to replace it.

I spent hours on the phone and internet trying to decide whether to rent or buy and whether to stay with gas or go back to electric. My good neighbor, among others, suggested it would be best to rent but offered to install one if I decided to buy. How lucky I am to have neighbors like this!

Anyway, I decided to rent and now believe it was the best choice by far that I could have made. Two young men arrived with the new gas water heater, installed it within an hour, removed the old one, and left no mess at all. One of the rather stupid reasons I had for considering changing to electric is that I'm afraid to light a gas one. I've never had to do it because my son-in-law does it for me before I return from Florida in the spring but he's seriously ill and we don't know what the future holds for him.

My dependency on others is a constant concern for me and I've tried to minimize it as much as possible but I lack the ability to do an awful lot of things. This makes me nervous and even a bit angry at times. Fortunately, there's a setting on the water heater for "vacation" which solves that particular problem. The pilot light remains lit but uses very little fuel and I just have to turn it back to "on" when I want full service.

I think my message today will be to other widows or single ladies on their own. You are capable of doing so much more than you ever imagined. Ask questions and make every effort to do for yourself before asking favors of others. Achieving success with your own efforts will boost your self confidence.

My husband was an extremely capable man who took care of most things around the house so I'm fairly new to having to deal with them now. I'm kind of proud of myself for what I've done so far. It's a pretty good feeling!