Self Portrait Challenge: Skills Week 1

My father works a lot. By "a lot" I mean 7 days a week, 12-hour days, probably about 360 days a year. When I was growing up, other kids I knew had dads that fixed things around the house - clogged toilets, squeaking doors, vacuum cleaners that weren't picking up things. My father wasn't really around for this kind of chore, so my mom was the person who did all the little projects that needed to get done. During the late seventies and early eighties it was still relatively novel to see a housewife replacing electrical outlets and patching cracks in the driveway, but my mom didn't really have the option of creating "honey-do" lists for my father's weekends since he didn't have weekends. This is possibly the root of my feminism, but I can't be sure. My sister and I were her helpers, and so I learned how to do all the stuff I was helping her do. What developed from this is an intense love for and talent with power tools. Few things make me feel more kick-ass then drilling something. Poor Shannon is lucky if I will let him touch the tools at all.