I struggle with this. I come from a long line of do-it-yourselfers. My Dad was the duct tape king. I even remember a time he taped the side mirror back on his truck and drove it that way for months. So know that I don’t like to accept that I have limits. If it’s broken, I want to fix it. I have to work to be realistic about what I can and can’t, should and shouldn’t do, especially when it comes to the safety of myself or my husband.

My can-do attitude is beneficial at times. It helps me with a lot of minor tasks around the house, those things that come up that we never thought we would have to face. I can change a broken light fixture, fix a leaky faucet, powerwash our patio and change the filters in our furnace. Heck, I can even clean gutters, not that I ever want to again. I can’t do anything that involves climbing on the roof, I can’t lift more than 25 pounds, I can’t use heavy power tools like our chainsaw.

The thing about understanding my limits is that I need to have a back-up plan. If something needs to be done and it’s beyond my scope, I need to have a list of people I can call for help. The next step in that plan is that once I make the call, I must let them do it on their schedule. My husband has been wonderful in helping me with this task by encouraging me to be patient. He has always preferred to hire professionals and get things done right the first time, which means we already have many people on standby. We have family who can help with the smaller things. Now, I just need to learn to make those calls and let them.