Thankful Friday (Because Thursday isn’t the only day on which one can be thankful)

While new years often mean new starts, it’s lovely that one doesn’t have to start over completely. Instead, one can build on old habits, old routines, past success. I am so glad for those routines that are already there, those routines that sometimes get skipped for a day or two, but that are there to fall back on.

This week I’m thankful…

…for daily laundry
I do laundry every day (actually, 4-5 days per week), which somehow means that I never get exhausted by laundry. How is this? Every morning I put a load of laundry in after our showers. I switch it to the dryer at lunch (and, for most of the laundry, hang it after it tumbles 20 minutes). That evening (if it tumbles dry) or the next day (if it hangs), I’ll fold and put away the load and be done. This means that while I do laundry every day, I never spend more than 15 minutes on any given part of it–and if I miss a step somewhere (or even a whole day or two or three) it’s easy to get back on track.

…for shower squeegees
I’m not fantastic about cleaning the bathroom, but we do have a routine of squeegeeing the shower surround after our morning shower. This means that we don’t have the water spots and soap scum build up that often accompanies an unattended shower. That way, when I DO get around to cleaning the shower, it doesn’t take much to get it sparkling.

…for morning coffee
Daniel makes coffee every morning. We turn the pot on right before our shower and Daniel pours mine into a mug (for drinking right away) and his into a thermos (for keeping him awake in the midmorning at work) right after we’re done. That way, I can sit right down for breakfast with hot coffee and a book (or catching up on blog reading with Feedly.)

…for Daniel’s developing routine
Not long after we got married, Daniel asked what he can do around the house to help me out. I racked my brain for answers and finally arrived at washing dishes (it’s not that there aren’t other things that need to be done, but I didn’t want to turn them over to Daniel lest he disrupt my systems. Sigh. I can be such a control freak sometimes.) During school, when homework and classes were taking a lot of his free time, I often ended up beating him to them. But for the last few weeks he’s been chastising me if I do the dishes. That’s his job, he’ll say. And (almost) every night, he runs the sinks full and does a load of dishes – leaving me time to 1) do those other household tasks that I’m not willing to give him and 2) be lazy (like last night, when I read ten glorious chapters of The Blue Castle while he buttoned up the house for the evening.)

…for my lifeline
Every morning, I roll over, take my temperature and my levothyroxine, and grab my lifeline. I pull up the the OliveTree app on my phone and read the day’s reading. The words of Scripture wash over me. Sometimes I discover something profound, sometimes I gasp in the sweetness of a particular passage. More often, I just read, chew on, digest the word of God – knowing that whether I feel it or not, it is nourishment to my soul.

Routines are glorious things, and I’m so glad for the blessing of routines that ease my days, lighten my loads, and nourish my soul. May my regular response to the daily routines be thankfulness to the God who gives me each new day, each new opportunity to do the same old things.

From today’s lifeline:

“I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.”
~Psalm 9:1-2 (ESV)