Accepting (and even asking for) Help

This whole new/old house thing is a lot of work. I’ve been blessed to have a bunch of friends who are being very helpful.

I must admit-when people first said to me “Let me know if there is anything I can do to help”, my first instinct is to say “thanks, I will” and then do it all myself anyway.

But you know what? No one (or no couple in YB & my case) can do everything themselves. Granted, we’ve hired people to do a few things (paint ceilings, refinish the floors, babysit the kiddos), but we are doing all the rest ourselves in order to save money. A wise woman I know pointed out to me that people make offers of help because they truly do want to help, and that there is no shame in taking them up on it!

So far friends and family have:

-Helped strip wallpaper (3 different folks on multiple occasions ranging from 1 hr to 4 hrs)
-Helped scrub wallpaper paste off of walls (ick)
-Helped paint (2 folks for 4 hours each)
-Vacuumed (a friends teenage son who is obsessed with vacuums-he even did down all the vents etc)
-Washed 1 chandelier-which included taking off each individual crystal (thanks MIL!)
-Provided lunch-a girlfriend who is in my TOPs weightloss group has stopped by twice and brought healthy lunch so I don’t eat junk-that’s a great friend.
-Provided snacks-another friend dropped of treats to snack on, apologizing the whole time that she couldn’t stay and help, and one of the new neighbors sent over pumpkin bread!
-Provided dinner (MIL bought pizza once, and a friend had us to their house so we didn’t have to cook)
-Lent us ladders, stepstools, paint rollers, steros (I have one, but there are two floors and we’ve all been working in different areas-music is good) and industrial work lights.
-Another friend has offered us the use of his enclosed trailer when it is time to actually move, all my girlfriends have offered up their hubbies for heavy lifting come moving time (although it IS deer hunting season, at least for bow-so we’ll see if that happens) and the next door neighbor (who is a friend from church) offered to watch the kiddos if we need it.

Loaning us items and providing us with meals has really saved us some money-and the time and talents of our friends has made things continue to happen quickly. We could have done all that stuff ourselves, but it would take much longer.

The moral of all this is this:

It is frugal to do things yourself, but don’t be afraid to ask for and accept help.