My Father’s Day Gift to the Most Important Men in My Life

I’m lucky gal. When I see something I want or need, I am not afraid to go into my workshop, pull out my tools, and make it. If I don’t know how to do or use what I need to make my idea a reality, I’m not afraid to ask (especially my BFF Google) or take a class and learn how to do it.

I always thought if people couldn’t find what they liked or have a champagne taste on a (craft) beer budget like I do they just build or make over something to fit their vision. Stereotypical Man’s Work and Woman’s Work never existed in my world. It has always been You Have Two Hands And The Job Needs To Be Done So Do It work.

Do you know who I have to thank for this?

My Dad.

My Father in law too.

Collectively Husband and I call them The DIY Dads.  Without these two men in my life, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. This post is my tribute to them and their Father’s Day gift. Well, part of it anyway.

Thanks Dad for not kicking me out of the garage while you worked on something, especially when I was little. For teaching me if I want something and don't want to wait, it usually best if you build yourself like our first DIY project,  the scrap wood step stool we needed so toddler me could reach the bathroom sink and brush my teeth. I’m sure I didn’t help much except maybe to hand you something or stay out of the way but I will never forget that once the paint was dry you said we built it. 

Oh, and while I'm at it, can you try to convince Mom to let me have that step stool? I haven't been able to reach the bathroom sink to brush my teeth since I moved out.

Thanks for giving me a love of cars by osmosis, big deep brass sections in band music even though we both played woodwinds back in the day, and how to make a fried egg sandwich. For my interest and talent in computers, and unhealthy love of gadgets, technology, and wanting know how things work. For the photography lens lesson in your kitchen. It is the best photography class I’ve ever taken.

For the way you explained the color theory of light to kindergarten me with a black and white TV program and a squirt gun, how a walking beam engine works, and well, just about everything sciency.  The way I organize my tech writing and teach using analogy and explain but never talk down to my student no matter how well versed or not they are in the subject comes directly from you.

Most of all, thanks for teaching me that if I can’t do something the way everyone else does that I should find another way to do it.

Like laying on the kitchen counter to paint a backsplash most normal size people can reach.

I didn’t fully realize the impact of your lessons and our projects together until other people marveled, including Husband, that I think it was no big deal to rent a jackhammer, even though I never used one, to remove extra concrete from my flowerbeds.  

Read about my best. day. ever. here.

And Father in law. Dear sweet Father in law. Thank you for unconditional love and calling me your daughter the minute after Husband and I tied the knot. For pointing out all of the structural and iffy things on the house I thought I wanted to buy and helping us find the one we did. For telling everyone who will listen about your DIYer daughter in law’s blog Condo Blues, for encouraging me to bring power tools to test out at family reunions, and for being my uncomplaining second set of hands when I’m running my project my way instead of the way you prefer to do it at your house.

And thank you for not killing me when you found out projects take a little longer than they 

should at my house because I have to stop and take a zillion photos of each step for the blog.

For distracting me at the right moment so Husband could pull off the most romantic proposal I have ever known (and would have gotten me torn to shreds on the spot by all of our friends if I said no.)  

The greatest gift you’ve ever given me is your son, who learned from you how to treat me with love, respect, and as an equal. Or maybe he learned that from Mother in Law because she is pretty spiffy too. Hard to say really. (Aw, come on. You can’t expect me to write a post without at least one joke in it can you?)

Happy Father’s Day, Dad and Father in Law. That you for guiding, teaching, and encouraging me to become the person I am today. I love you both and I don’t say it often enough.

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