A Stacked Bob Vila

So today it is time to pay tribute to Otto's Amazing Wife.

Amazing Wife is amazing on many levels, but I am compelled to log her amazingness because of the way she has stepped up her game lately around the house.

Here are the things she accomplished yesterday:

-- Finished the painting, caulking, and woodworking on the downstairs basement

-- Performed drywall repair on the stairway leading to the basement

-- Repaired the fence gate in the back yard

-- Painted a lamp that Daughter will be taking to her apartment in Morgantown this fall

Here are the things she accomplished the day before yesterday:

-- Repaired the sliding-glass door in the basement

-- Repaired the handrail in the stairway leading to the basement

If I were a single man, but still living in our present abode...well, I would not have had the first clue how to go about doing ANY of the above. Any of it. I would have looked at these things, day after day, in their sorry and broken conditions, and tried to ignore them. Except when I had to deal with them. Which, in some cases (like the sliding-glass door) would have been nearly every day. You needed the strength of The Incredible Hulk to move that door after it got busted -- hoisting and tugging and straining, cursing all the while -- and while the blow-it-off part of the male brain kept saying "It's no big deal" the other, bigger part, the one that deals with problem-solving and orderliness and that stuff, was having a Quiet Riot. Remember George Bailey's face, every time that doo-dad would pop off the top of the staircase thingy? Anger and despair.

So when God arranged to have my Amazing Wife and I meet, and then marry later (after I kept trying to screw up the plan), He knew that I had no skeels in the home improvement department. Not only no skeels, but no interest in developing any skeels. He also knew that my wife was about exactly the same way vis a vis cooking. He brought us together so we could fill each other's deficiencies. He is a great God in that way, and many others.

My Amazing Wife finds fulfillment in home improvement projects. I mean in actually DOING home improvement projects. Here are the two items she asked for and received three weeks ago, on her 52nd birthday:

A compound miter saw and a circular saw. That is what my Amazing Wife wanted for her birthday.

Let it not or ever be said that Amazing Wife's talents are limited to home improvement alone. No, verily, for she has made about half a dozen quilts, 50 birdhouses, 10 afghans, 13 sets of custom pillowcases, and a whole bunch of other stuff just in 2007. She has also lost 24 pounds in the past year and looks about as shapely as she did when I first laid eyes on her. She is a stacked Bob Vila, a Martha Stewart with a clean record, an HGTV Hero...

AND...she puts up with me. My moods, my sometimes potty mouth, my former drinking, my unhealthy habits, and all the other stuff that Otto is not so proud of. She puts up with it, bucks me up, loves me well and greatly, and laughs at my jokes. She IS The Original, OldSkool, Champions Tour Amazing Wife Of All Time. I am very blessed to be able to share my life with her. Selah.