Ok, I have been making a few observations as of late, and thought I would share. Seems like our lives get easier and easier and yet we still find things to grumble and complain about. For example, hardly any of us use shovels anymore - everyone has a snow blower. We do not, but almost all our neighbors do and so we do very little shoveling. Almost everyone has a riding mower, another tool we do not have, but our 87 year old neighbor has one, and so we never get to mow our grass as his yard is not even big enough to turn the machine around in. So he started mowing ours too and we buy the gas and do the trim work. I really wish my children could get a turn to mow the grass a bit more often.
We have dishwashers, we drive to the store to get butter, we have in the house washing machines, that do not involve a trip to the creek, a washboard, or a ringer. The list goes on and on. However, at one point I found myself grumbling about my dishwasher not working properly. We had to jimmy it with a chisel, but it still worked. Well it no longer works, and so it can be a bit labor intensive to wash dishes for a family our size, but I am going to do it with a smile. As well as with some tunes my mom gave me for Christmas. I have even managed to convince the children it is fun time together when we wash, dry and put away.
I will be thankful that someone is snow blowing our sidewalks no matter what the time (which was 6am on Saturday). I thought about grumbling but then caught myself. I thought about grumbling about some ceiling pieces that were coming down it the bathroom, but I knew my hubby has been very busy so I bought what was needed and assigned it to Carter, he did a great job and was most proud of his work.
I can even catch myself thinking about complaining about the time of day Roy chooses to mow the grass, how pathetic is that?
When I think about how good we really have it, when I see kids in other countries drinking dirty water, women carrying water from the creeks, no electricity, no house, no food, the list goes on and on, I am reminded that there really is not much worth complaining about.
Contentment, I love what the apostle Paul has to say about it in Philippians 4: 11-13.
The Happel Crew
July 2012: Front row Carter and Cade. Middle row Addy and Reegan. Back row Me, Kyler, Quincy, Cael, Jaycie, Dean and Mackenzie
We have a two foot snow shovel and it works just as well as a snow blower! We also have a very large yard, in which your children are very very welcome to come over and use our push mower! We might even pay them a little :) Great observations...think of all the money we're saving on snow blower gas?!
ReplyDelete