Single ladies can DIY
As a suddenly single lady, one of the things you discover - usually at an inopportune moment - is that there's no man about the house to rely on anymore. There are certain things that fall to a man's to-do list just because he's there. It's not necessarily that we ladies can't do it - but either we're smart enough to pretend we can't, or it does his head in watching us try.
But the jobs don't disappear when the man does. In fact, it almost seems as if everything is in cahoots: the smoke alarms on 8 foot ceilings whose batteries are flat, the eco-lightbulbs that flicker, windows that won't close, a door that won't open, blocked drains, broken fences, kitset furniture that arrives unassembled, kitchen cupboards fallen off their hinges ... I won't be far behind them!
Time to get me a pink tool-belt with a decent craft knife, electrical tape, some cable ties, screwdrivers (the line one, cross one and the one with the square head), pliers, and a measuring tape. Nothing a quick visit to Bunnings can't fix (and on a separate note: if you've been wondering where all the men are, it's highly likely they are walking aimlessly around their local hardware store!)
It's amazing what you can do when you really have to, and thank god for Google because whatever you don't know ... it does! If you need some extra help, invite your girlfriends to come and give you a hand (followed by a cool beverage of course). And when the tools can't be made to work, just use your kiwi ingenuity and some no.8 wire - my smoke alarms are held up by cellotape and it works perfectly well, thank you very much.
One of the great by-products of all this DIY is that your daughter will see you being self sufficient and independent. This is another way that you show her that she has everything she needs to make her way in this world. Watching mum do jobs that would normally be done by a man helps to break down the stereotype - maybe we need a bit more of this to encourage our girls into those STEM subjects!
I suspect the opposite is also true and that there are men out there who wouldn't otherwise have known how to make a mean-as banana cake or the importance of separating whites and colours. This entire article is unashamedly stereotypical but ever-so-slightly true!
