Gratitude, Day 1

November is one of my favorite times of year.  I love holiday time.  I love fall.  And November is my birthday month.  My birthday always falls around Thanksgiving time so for me, Thanksgiving and my birthday are synonymous.  Last year on Facebook, a few friends were doing daily gratitude posts.  I thought this was a great idea so I'm jumping on the bandwagon.

The approach I am going to take is to express gratitude for something from that day.  Sometimes that may be a really mundane or everyday thing.  Other times it may be a big thing.  The order I give thanks in isn't important here.  What is important is to notice something about every day that I am grateful for.  I hope to also post a picture.

November 1--I spent a lot of time today working with clothes.  I had a huge laundry pile to deal with.  I was also straightening out my boys' clothing.

Today I am grateful for laundry machines.

Recently, Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast, particularly New York City/New York and New Jersey.  Many homes were destroyed.  Many more were damaged and flooded.  Millions of people are without power, heat and their personal things.  Having to wear the same clothes and underclothes for several days would not be a pleasant experience.  And it would be worse if those clothes had gotten wet/dirty from being caught in flood waters or trying to escape.  I remember a Tide commercial from some time ago that featured a semi-truck fitted with laundry machines and it went around to areas that didn't have power/water/laundry facilities and residents who couldn't wash their clothes were able to get their laundry done using the machines on the Tide truck. I remember something said during the commercial about how much just having clean clothes helped. 

side note:  I did a quick search and this program is called Tide Loads of Hope (www.tideloadsofhope.com).  Some of their commercials are on YouTube.

 My laundry room isn't cute.  The ceiling isn't finished and the dryer duct runs up the wall to the outlet near the ceiling.  The floor is an ugly linoleum that is peeling in places.  There's a window but it's not trimmed.  But today, all that doesn't matter.  What matters is that I HAVE laundry machines and they WORK.  Laundry isn't my favorite chore to do and sometimes I will put off doing laundry until someone has no clean underwear, but I'm grateful that I have modern machines that allow me to just dump in clothes, pour in a bit of soap and push a few buttons; and in an hour or so I have clean clothes!  Then those wet, but clean, clothes go into the dryer, two buttons are pushed and in another hour or so the clothes are dry!