Minuscule Things I'm Grateful For

A Garage
For the first two years of marriage we either had a parking space or a covered parking space. And when we bought Paul his first motorcycle, it took precedence when it came to having the covered space. There are SO many good things about having a garage!

1. Your car stays cleaner for longer and doesn't receive the wear and tear it does when it's constantly outside, day and night.

2. You don't have to scrape ice or snow off of it in the wintertime! It's also warmer in the garage so you aren't freezing halfway (or all the way) to work.

3. You can store stuff!!

Heated Water
I don't know if I made a post about this, but about a month or two after we moved into our new place, the gas was shut off. I didn't realize that in our contract we were supposed to get in touch with the gas company and take over. Not sure how I missed that.....we went without hot water, the oven, the stove, and the heater for over a week before we were able to get a hold of someone to sort it out and get them to come turn it back on. What a headache!

I now have a newfound respect for heated water as well as other things that deal with heat (especially during the wintertime).

Air Conditioning
So, it was bad enough that our gas was turned off during the wintertime ~ and then our air conditioning broke in the summertime! Luckily the landlords took care of the costs so we just had to inform them of the situation and get someone to come over to fix it. This happened on a weekend (the gas did too!) so we had to wait for someone to come in on Tuesday. I think it was a holiday on Monday or something. Anyways, he came and diagnosed it and then we had to wait several more days until another guy could come with the correct part and fix it.

It was HOT. We were eating otter pops like crazy and going over to swim at my mom's as much as we could.

Not to mention the air conditioning in a car can be the most wonderful thing in the world. I had owned a car when I was younger that had "selective" air conditioning. It worked when it wanted. It stinks (literally) driving from your home to someplace else and having sweat sticking to your back and running down your face.

A Printer

We bought a printer when we first were married, but it didn't last long for us. It had sooo many issues. Anytime I wanted to print something, I couldn't. It was frustrating. :( We finally were rid of that and were without a printer for forever. Then my mom and stepdad gave us an old one they had. That one took about 30 minutes to boot up and it was really noisy. The cartridges were also VERY expensive. Once it ran out of one cartridge (it had to have 4 working ones at all times) it wouldn't print at all. We couldn't keep up with it. It was too pricey. We put it in the closet and just left it there for a long time.

Finally, fed up, I asked Paul to find some printers he thought looked nice. He sent me a few links and I picked a couple I thought were nice, but he ended up making the final decision. This time, when we received it, I installed it myself so that it could get to know me. I didn't want a hate relationship like with the other two.

It has been super awesome ever since. We have probably had it for a few months now. Not disappointed. I can actually print things when I want to! I know it sounds silly, but when I taught our primary class there were always some activities I would want to print for the class, but couldn't. I resorted to skipping over some activities and handwriting others.

Printers are really really REALLY nice to have. They are a blessing.

A Small Place to Live
I know, you are thinking WHAT? Everyone would be grateful to have a lot of space! Well, we are kind of grateful for limited space because it forces us to get rid of things we do not need. It also reminds us that we don't have room for a lot of things so we are not tempted to buy a lot of stuff. That might not be the case for everyone, but it is for us. We still have a lot of storage here and still need to get rid of a lot of stuff, but it could be worse! Limited space can be a good thing!

Two Sinks
Our first place we only had one bathroom, which only had one sink. Our second place we had two bathrooms and the master bath had two sinks! This is when I grew to love two sinks. It is seriously annoying pushing and shoving each other when you are both needing to use the sink. Or, in some cases, stamping your feet like a 2 year old and whining at the other to hurry. OR, in my case, having toothpaste dribbling down my chin while waiting for Paul to hurry up.

I swear we always need to use it around the same time, every day. I always wondered why there had to be a His and Hers. I realized early that it is pretty healthy to not have to push and shove each other. I'm okay with sharing if that's what we have to do, but I am extremely grateful for being given the opportunity to have these two sinks.

A Master Bathroom

Let's face it ~ in the middle of the night you might need to go to the bathroom and you might not be sleeping in your PJs. And what if you have kids that are older or you are rooming with another person? Who wants to run into the hallway in their underwear? Or, who wants to get dressed just to go to the bathroom? A bathroom that is connected to your room is SUCH a blessing. I will not ever be able to go back. It's just too convenient.

Mattress Heater
I realize not everyone has had one of these or has even heard of them. Our first Christmas my mom and stepdad bought us this bed/mattress heater pad. It goes right on top of your mattress just like those quilted pads do. Each side of the pad has it's own heater and a little device where you can both set your own temperature. That way you can heat your side as much as you want and he can heat his as much as he wants. It is AWESOME for the wintertime. No more getting into bed cold! And if you are cold, you'll warm up fast! We use it every winter.