Learning New Skills in 2013

I have recently discovered a fascinating podcast by Jack Spirko called thesurvivalpodcast.com. For many of you, the mere word "survival" conjures up visions of cammo-wearing, assault rifle-toting, redneck fear mongerers.
I assure you, this is not the case at all.
My ever-patient husband, Tom, watches me taking copious notes on gardening techniques, generator and battery tips, cooking ideas and more.
Now, Jack has challenged his listeners to learn thirteen new skill in the year 2013 and as even developed a website just for this challenge called 13skills.com
These skills don't necessarily have to be prepper based.
One of the skills I chose was to improve my writing and starting this blog seemed to be a good idea.
I also have included some of the other more run-of-the-mill skills like canning, wild game processing, etc.
So, why would I think that learning new skills would be worthy of blogging about?
Well, for one thing, I'm fifty years old with grandchildren, and take my word for it, learning new skills at this age, really is more difficult.
That realization is really hard on the ego, too.
Regardless, I invite you to go along with me in my quest to learn "new tricks."
We'll explore the frustrations of learning something new and laugh at ourselves at the same time. (Or you can laugh at me, therefore taking the pressure off of you.)
Let me first tell you why plumbing is NOT on my list of skills to learn.
A few months ago, our tub backed up and my husband was not in a hurry to fix it so I decided to take matters into my own hands.
Instead of using the small pipe snake, I decided that this clog needed the bigger, professional snake that we stored in the garage.
Even at fifty, I'm pretty strong, so I lugged the 75-lb. snake into the house and proceeded to remove the screws from the part where you flip the toggle to plug the drain.
I don't know what that part is called, but I've seen my husband remove it previously and so that is what I did.
I stuck the snake down the hole and worked it as far as I could.
I also remembered where he'd had trouble in the past getting it into the right place, so I proceeded to ram the snake repeatedly down the drain pipe, fully expecting to fix the clog.
After several minutes, I was have no luck, and sweat was streaming down my face. (Wait, I'm a girl. Perspiration glistened on my cheek.)
I kept repeating to myself, "My husband has done this--so can I!"
Finally, something gave and I heard water trickling as the tub began to empty.
Elated, I started cleaning up and turned to the lavatory to wash my hands.
No water! Hmm.
Apparently, I had disconnected the drain pipe from the tub, slamming it into the water supply pipe and dislodged it also.
Luckily, I did have enough smarts to turn the water off at the main, so that there was not a mud slick under the house.
That only helped a little in getting me out of the doghouse because the crawl space under the house is very shallow. My instructions at this time was to be prepared to call the fire department in the event that Tom got stuck while trying to get to the drain.
I sat in the office with tears streaming down my face while listening to my husband grunt and groan with every scooch and wiggle as he slid his full frame past spiders and God knows what else under the old house.
Yep. No more plumbing for me! The good news is that my husband now is very expedient in fixing any plumbing problems as soon as they occur, just in case I change my mind.