Give me a couple of cable ties, and I’m a woman on fire. These things are brilliant: the sleek black lines, the crisp catch and the end of the pull, the flexibility, and ooohh… the efficiency. Yesterday, in my quest for an organized, slim-lined life, I moved my daughter’s computer from one room to another. I’d called the cable guys, and they couldn’t come until next week. When I have an idea, especially in the department of organization and design, I’m very bad at waiting.

Thanks to the hundreds of hours I stood around holding plywood, mixing cement, and fetching tools for my father when I was young, I have a good grasp of “fix-up”basics. I know my limits: I’m not going to climb on the roof or clean sewers, but with a ladder, tool kit, and good old-fashioned smacking and pulling, I can get a lot accomplished where others only dreamed.

Here in Costa Rica, women do not build or fix things. Rarely do they get up on ladders. (Of course there are exceptions.) Whenever people see me lugging trees or tools or ladders, I usually get a suggestion to get the handy man to help. There’s always a guy that’ll help. And I’m grateful when I need them because the labor is affordable, and it’s a blessing as a single mom to know there’s a professional out there that will drive to land of the lost to find a special hose that will fit my washer.

But a cable! Move a computer! Bring it on! I hauled the desk up the stairs, the computer, the millions of computer wires, and on and on. At the end of the job, I pulled out the cable ties. Who invented these things? Again, I say brilliant. In a sinch, wires once creeping like unruly snakes that even Indian Jones would be afraid of, are tamed. After I’ve finished, I keep a couple in my pocket looking around the house for a dangling something that needs to be brought to order.