When I come home from work now, my kids meet me at the door and ask what I got to do today. Thanks to my new role as Construction Girl, I get to tell them cool things. I got to use a table saw. I learned how to edge band. I got to cut a hole in the ceiling with a keyhole saw. And I got to climb into the attic and throw insulation around. Of course when I tell them I add sound effects. Fern even exclaimed, "I want to be a Construction Girl too!"

Maybe if you've been doing this for years it isn't fun anymore. But after having a sedentary job, it is totally cool. It's so different from teaching because you can see your end product. As with any job, it helps to like the people you work with. Change is good. If you haven't had a change in a while, consider one.

Now I've just finished putting the Mom show to bed, I've poured a glass of wine and I want to tell you a few things I learned today.

Girls, you know sometimes when you need a hammer and you don't feel like running down to the garage so you use a shoe or some other improvisation, construction guys do that too, although they don't usually whip off their shoe.

I learned that compression nuts control the flow of water. (You're on your own with that one.)

While we were attaching cabinet drawer and door pulls, I was also surprised to learn something new about screws and hardware. Sometimes the hole the manufacturer bores into the hardware is off center, making the mounted hardware crooked. Some screws arrive from the manufacturer useless because the threads don't go all the way to the end or the little cuts in the head aren't deep enough for the screwdriver to grip.

So if the screw isn't working for you, it might not be your fault. Some screws are simply not meant to be. The sooner you throw out the bad screw and start over with a new screw the better.

I thought I knew some things about screws, but even at my age I find there is still so much to learn.