Happy New Year! Congratulations on being an idiot!

So two hours before the new year came, my children, my wife and my mother-in-law were playing hide-and-seek in the basement of my first home (not that I have any others, just pointing it out early so I make myself clear later....clear as mud that is).
One hiding place was in the boys' closet where it was discovered that the carpet was pretty damp, nay soaked under foot. Sarah and I already knew we had some sort of leak next door to the boys room in the basement bathroom. I say the bathroom yet the leak was coming down into the bathroom from the upstairs bathroom.

When I first saw it I told myself it couldn't have been the two newly installed toilets I just installed. After that 'man moment' I couldn't take a blow like that to my ego, so I came up with other conclusions. The conclusions I came to ignored me until I could no longer ignore reality on New Years Eve. I busted through the drywall and discovered the awful truth: the toilet exporter was leaking. I called my DIYer friend/hometeacher (thanks Curtis) in the ward to get his perspective and guidance. He always makes me feel better about things and he came through for me on this one. According to him its a common installation problem to either break the wax ring while installing, or install the wrong size/model depending on if the toilet will be sitting on tile, if the wax ring will be sitting on the same level, etc.

My hometeacher also makes everything sound so darn easy. He is building a house basically by himself that, when he sells, should make him at least 100% profit. I realized this and allowed Sarah to call a plumber and look at the faulty installation from a professional perspective. I had the wrong size wax ring installed. So you live, you learn, you clean up the toilet water, right? Then replace the carpet padding, drywall and pay the plumber even though he showed more butt-crack than should be allowed in a tasteful rated "R" movie.

I have many thoughts run through my head as the man of the house and owner of a house. Not the least of these is my relentless comparison in how I stack up to what I learned a man should be from my childhood model found in my dad. I always use him as a baseline in how I am doing as a man, father, husband, son, etc. I know he isn't the model in everything, yet he is a good baseline to start from, especially in the man category. He could build, fix, create, replace and DIY on any aspect of a home, yard, toy, game or tree. When I think of how I am coming along in this category I think, "Hey, at least I know what a hammer is! Wait, claw hammer, roofing hammer, ball-peen hammer, tack hammer! Fine, I DON'T know! You happy?!"

So happy new year to me and the ones I try to provide for ay?