Every year, right before Christmas, I take advantage of school being out and a house full of children eager to show some last minute goodness and make my kids clean out their toys. As we pack up bags of toys for charity I am always surprised to see how many of their "treasures" the kids decide to give away. Of course part of that generosity may be the thought that they need room for all the new things Santa will bring, but I think it is also that they realize what an abundance of stuff they have and they truly want to share.
I love that Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the holiday season. What better way to enter into the rush of Christmas, than to take some time to reflect on all the things we already have. This year, Thanksgiving reminded me how grateful I am for two things in particular.
The first thing is family. My brother Tim and his wife Cami drove down from North Carolina to spend the holiday with us this year. Living far away from all our family, having visitors is always a treat, but having them spend a holiday with us just makes it extra special. The boys especially had a great time forcing Uncle Tim to play hours of Zelda with them to teach them all the tricks of the game. By the end of the visit Tim finally wised up and showed Brandon how to find the cheats himself online ("teach a man to fish. . .").
The second thing I am thankful for this year is my oven. The morning before Thanksgiving I went to put a pie in the oven and it wouldn't heat. The day before, I had run the self-cleaning cycle on the oven, in order to fool our guests into thinking we live in a cleaner house than we really do, and apparently it messed things up because though the power turned on, the oven refused to heat up. This set off a lot of anxiety on my part and a frantic call to Mark at work where, I am told, his co-workers had a good giggle over hearing my panic stricken voice screaming out of the phone.
Being the sweet man that he is, Mark rushed home and started calling repair places only to be told time and time again that "no, there is no way we can get someone out there today." A dear friend of mine, who was going out of town, graciously offered me use of her oven if we couldn't get ours working, but thankfully, one of the repair places finally took pity on us and gave us the unlisted number of a guy they knew who is starting his own business and who actually had time to come see us. And, as it turns out, he had the part we need with him so, within about 45 minutes of his arrival, the oven was ready for baking.
How grateful I am to live in such a magical age where my food is cooked at the touch of a button, where light and heat appear at the flip of a switch, and clean water flows with the turn of a knob. For all the conveniences of modern life that I take for granted until they stop working, I am especially grateful this year.
3 comments:
Three (yes, 3!) years ago my oven broke after I tried to run the self-clean too. Ever since then I have been scared to try it again. My oven is pretty dirty.
Glad you got yours fixed and had a great Thanksgiving!
The guy who came to fix the oven told me never to run the self-clean as it breaks ovens all the time.
What a great excuse to have a dirty oven.
There is also the option of cleaning it 'yourself, but that is pretty out dated I understand.
There is lots to be grateful for we certainly are blessed.
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