When I was a child, I hated doing dishes. It's not that I loved other chores either, but that one in particular was my nemesis. We had a dishwasher in every house we lived in as far as I can remember, but I still had a vehement dislike for washing dishes. As I got older, I finally realized that my mom wasn't going to come over and do dishes for me, so I had to suck it up and do them myself. I was hoping they weren't joking when my parents told me they'd get me a lifetime supply of paper plates when I got married...
Now that I have a family of my own, I have decided that I would rather wash dishes than cook in a dirty kitchen. Eeeewww. I just can't. So when my dishwasher died last week...oh boy. If you've been reading my blog for a while, then you know I'm a fan of Dave Ramsey and the baby steps. We're still on step two (debt snowball for those that don't know my buddy, Dave), and we have our rental property for sale. Let me translate for you: that means we don't have piles of cash laying around because we're paying two mortgages currently, which means I'm not going to go spend the money to buy a new dishwasher right now.
BUT there are benefits to having a broken dishwasher: that means my family has a new opportunity to work together. That means I get to have time with my kiddos where we're in close proximity and we have to communicate. It also means I get to teach my kids about delayed gratification. I get to acknowledge that, yes, this absolutely sucks that we don't have a dishwasher currently, and we won't be getting one until either our other house sells, or we get our debt paid off...and here's the towel to dry.
I don't think it's as simple as making lemonade from lemons, but there are plenty of life lessons to be learned in sucky situations. What do you need to learn today?
Make it a beautiful day, friends.
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I love the way you see past the face value of things!
ReplyDeleteIt takes practice and intentionality! :-)
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