Thursday, November 28, 2013

Why I'm Thankful I Got to Cook Thanksgiving Dinner

How a small flood made me happy to have a kitchen.


Tonight, my family enjoyed ham, potatoes, and some steamed asparagus. That’s a simple meal (the only kind I like to cook), but on Monday, after our hot water heater gave up the ghost and left a pond in our family room as a parting gift (killing the laminate floor in the process), I wasn’t sure Thanksgiving was going to turn out like I had envisioned.

"Think about all the people without hot running water," we said. Then, "Think about all the people without water at all."

That thought made us feel better on Tuesday than it did on Wednesday.

Today, we got hot water back. It still feels like we’re camping inside our house, but I’m OK with that. We can use the kitchen and the dining room, and really, that’s all I was concerned about for today. I just wanted to have Thanksgiving dinner at home—and having hot water makes that so much easier.

This has inspired me to be thankful for many things: 
  • The handyman who showed up today, Thanksgiving Day, to put in the new hot water heater. 
  • My dear friend and neighbor who let me shower at her place before work on Tuesday and Wednesday. (Unspeakably appreciative of that.) 
  • Microwaves (for quickly heating water). 
  • A standard of living that's easy to take for granted. 
  • The yards of cable my son and hubby put together so we could watch TV. (“The Godfather” is looking awesome right now.)

The chaos is set to resume tomorrow, when the rest of the “fixing” begins. Not sure how long this will take, or what it will entail. But for right now, I’ve had my holiday meal and I can wash dishes without heating water in the microwave

Sometimes it really is the little things in life that we're the most thankful for, isn’t it?


Happy Thanksgiving!

How was your holiday?

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