Taking You For Granted

So this week our kitchen sink plugged up.  At first I didn't really pay much attention to it.  I casually mentioned it to my husband as an after thought.  Honestly, I thought I put too much down the disposal again.  Carrot and potato peels aren't always my friend.  Usually a good flush of hot water, and my sink is back in business.  Not this time.

Three days later I was still without a sink.  I realized a few things during this ordeal.

One.  I took my kitchen sink for granted.  How many countries out there do not have running water to every household and to five rooms in that household?  How many people have to walk miles to get cold water and then heat it up by other means when all I have to do is turn a knob to get either scalding hot or icy, cool water?  How many people get running water but have to boil it or use other means to make it drinkable?  Plus, I can use a  a pretty, black plastic plug to stop up my sink and fill it up with clean, fresh water.

Two. I can live without my sink.  I have four other sinks in my house to use.  Yes, it was a little more difficult to wash my son's bottles and sippy cups and spoons.  I also became fast friends with paper plates and cups.  Another commodity many others do not have.  Disposable utensils and dinnerware.  And frozen dinners in a bag.  Genius idea.

Three.  Plumbing is way more complicated than I imagined...and I worked in the industry for three years (on the pretty side of things-selling and designing).  Pipes and closeouts, oh my!

Four.  My husband should start his own handyman business.  He exhausted every avenue to fixing our plugged sink.  He snaked and cleaned and drained until the middle of the night even after working at his real job all day.  And he never lost his patience.  He never got upset.  He just moved on from solution to solution until we had no more solutions, and I was coming to terms with the idea of washing the dishes piling up on my counter in big sudsy buckets on my kitchen floor.

In the end we had to call a plumber.  We needed his industrial sized snake with a razor-sharp blade to make the final push.  It worked.  Now I have clean, cold or hot, potable water running through my kitchen again.

And now every time I use my sink, I remember how blessed I am.

How were you blessed this week?




(Disclaimer: sink pictured is not mine...maybe in my dream home!)