Girls and hardware stores.

I enjoy DIY projects. I enjoy hardware stores. I enjoy wandering through aisles of tools comparing product specs and dreaming up projects that I could do with that tool so that I could be justified in buying it. Since I enjoy these things so much, when we made the decision for me to be the one to stay home with the kids, I thought it would make my life easier if I taught the kids to like the same things as I do. Starting with hardware stores.

It doesn’t really matter which hardware store. Lowe’s, Home Depot, Ace, Sutherlands, Atwood’s – they’re all good for wandering around to kill time and think about home projects. Even the AAA Rental Office is good for a quick fix. Knowing now how much I like hardware stores, it should be no surprise when I say that I take the girls to one almost on a daily basis. When it rains we don’t go to the mall, we go to Lowe’s. When it’s too hot in the summer we don’t go to a water park, we go to Home Depot. When it’s too cold to play outside in the winter we don’t park in front of the tv with sippy cups of hot chocolate, we go to Ace. And so on.

We go to Lowe’s and Home Depot so much, in fact, that the girls recognize the stores from the car. They say things like, “I want to go to that Blue Store (Lowe’s)” or “Let’s fix the house with the Orange Store (Home Depot).”

“Fix the house.” That’s what I tell them I’m doing when I work on a project at home. Replacing the kitchen faucet became “fixing Mami’s water” and replacing the broken bricks on the outside steps became “building [Abigail’s] steps”. But in general, working on a house project is “fixing the house.” That can be anything from tearing out and rebuilding the sunroom to hanging a picture.