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Grateful for the Technology That Makes My Life Easier


Looking out the window and I see a woman carrying armful after armful of clothing to her car and suddenly I am struck with gratitude. I can hear my washing machine humming in the background and I think how grateful I am that I can do my wash right here in my home and it is sooo easy.

When I think back to what doing a load of laundry took earlier in my life - schlepping to the Laundromat anyone? That was boring, time consuming, and physically tiring. Still, it was a vast improvement over what came before.

For the first 10 years of my life we had a wringer washer. For those of you who might not know what that is, it required 3 galvanized wash tubs - one for washing (with your hands and a brush), a second for rinsing with your hands, and then you ran the clothes through the wringer which you ran with a crank and then the last time to rinse again and then wring again. The water had to be changed periodically from a big sink. All this before you had to hang the clothes outside on the line.

I am not saying all this to complain. Heck, I didn't know there was any other way and I was a kid so I just did my part which was limited. I say it to show the stark contrast to throwing a load of clothes into the automatic washer--that controls the water temperature, agitates the clothes, spins the excess water from the clothes, and drains the water--all without any extra effort on my part. That is pretty darn neat and something to be very thankful for this morning.

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