Accepting Help Without Complaint

 Today Mr. Padawan did me a solid and I had to bite my tongue so I didn't complain (much).

I tossed in a load of towels this morning and then went to my Zoom meeting figuring I would hang the towels out when I got lunch.  I got out of my meeting and went to get the towels out of the washing machine when I noticed that Mr. Padawan was on the deck, hanging the towels!  

My immediate reaction was, 'awe that is so sweet', and so I went out to thank him and then I saw it.  He hung them out differently than I do!  

The horror!  

Now my reaction (in my head only) was, 'OMG he is doing it wrong!  Why would he do this?  Doesn't he know that isn't how you hang out the towels?  Was he raised by a heathen?"

For the record he was not raised by a heathen, my Mother In Law is very nice and delightful, and we can hang out without her son or my children present.  But I don't think he grew up with hanging laundry on the line to dry either.

One thing I know that I need to work on is accepting help when the task is done differently than the way I would do it, but you come to the end result.  Why is this so hard?

I did end up going out on the deck and I gave him a hug and thanked him and told him that he didn't have to do that.  Because truly he didn't, I had fully expected to do it probably because I have control issues apparently but mostly because I know he does not like hanging laundry out to dry.  

He and I both know that we have to work on accepting help when it is done differently than we do, and so I told him that yes I am thankful and I keep telling myself different isn't bad.  He laughed, he understood, and I think he was happy that I didn't yell at him that he did it the wrong way, but acknowledged that there is more than one way to do the task.