It was almost a year ago that our family suffered through the unfortunate incident of a car taking a left turn a little late (and way too fast) and ending up with its bumper in our oldest son’s bedroom.
You don’t move past something like your house getting hit by a car quickly. There was insurance to deal with (added to the pain was the fact the driver had none), a contractor to find (who were mostly all booked up), and a gaping hole in the front of our house as the temperature plummeted into the single digits.
After talking to several contractors, my husband Mark decided to do the repairs himself and while it was a long, drawn-out process requiring many many trips to Home Depot, numerous six-packs of beer, and a whole array of new tools he will hopefully never need to use again, he did what needed to be done and the room looks just like it did before.
Actually, it looks better because in spite of all the plaster dust, mess and confusion, we were able to do a major housecleaning, and where there were once heavy metal posters and approximately a billion CD’s on the shelves our son Joe put up when he was in high school, there are now our posters on the walls (“The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” “Starsky and Hutch,” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” to name a few — guess who decorates in our house?) and our collection of DVD’s and CD’s on the shelves since Joe no longer trusts his music collection to our questionable care.
Having a car drive into your house gives you pause as well as makes you realize that you have a lot to be grateful for, especially with Thanksgiving just around the corner.
Sometimes it seems as if Thanksgiving is getting squeezed between the bigger holidays of Halloween and Christmas, which I think is a shame since Thanksgiving has always been a nice reflective kind of holiday (plus, it’s a holiday where you consume more calories in a single day than most people do in a week; what’s not to love about that?).
With that thought in mind, I came up with my own list of what I’m thankful for this year:
n A husband who knows his way around a toolbox and is willing to take on a major job like fixing a hole in the front of our house with very little whining and zero assistance from his spouse. Had the clean-up and repair been left to me, well, let’s just say by this point we’d probably have set up a motel for all the squirrels and chipmunks that came into our house through the hole that would still be there.
n Foam rubber mattress covers. Someone told me how wonderful foam rubber mattress covers were, but I didn’t believe it. I especially didn’t believe it since we’d recently bought a new mattress and surely it didn’t need any enhancement. Wrong! Our new mattress began feeling saggy and baggy within months, so we caved and got ourselves a foam rubber cover. Topped with fleece sheets and a down comforter, I will gladly stay in bed from the day after Thanksgiving until St. Patrick’s Day.
n Ditto for memory foam shoe inserts. It must be an aging thing, or possibly a nothing-is-made-like-it-used-to-be thing, but whenever anyone in our family gets new shoes, they also get memory foam shoe inserts. I don’t know who came up with memory foam, but my tootsies are in love with them.
n Our dogs. All three of them. While three can often feel like 30, especially on walks when we spot other dogs and our pups have a group meltdown, I can’t imagine life without any of them, nor do I want to.
n Libraries. When I die and go to Heaven, I am pretty sure it’s going to look like a library, and I’ll never have to get my library card renewed. I’m also sure there will be no waiting for bestsellers, the lighting will be excellent, and there will be free Starbucks coffee galore.
n Jeans with elastic waistbands and tunic tops. Self-explanatory at this time of year and two fashion trends for which one can be truly thankful.
Nell Musolf is a freelance writer based in Mankato. She can be reached at nmusolf@gmail.com.