I love this time of year because so many changes happen all at once – you jump from summer to fall and you’re enjoying the color changes when WHAM!  Winter drops a bomb on you, and it gets colder faster than you expected!

We had major frost yesterday morning.   If I wanted to add this to my list of 4, I’d say “Thank God for a central HEATER” because if you’ve ever lived with a woodstove and switched over, you’d kiss your heat pump every winter.   Maybe even rub and pat it.  Talk sweet to it.  Cherish the fact that with the flip of a switch, you have heat!

Anyway, without further ado (or gabbing too long), here are my next four things I’m grateful for:

1 – My two freezers – Until I married Alpha Hubby, I never had a freezer.  Then again, I never had much food to put into a freezer!  The first year after we married, he bought the upright.  It was wonderful!  I could buy extra food, pop it in the freezer and know I had plenty!  Then a couple of  years ago, we decided to buy half a beef so purchased the chest freezer.  I can’t tell you how it made me feel to go out, open that freezer lid and gaze at all those beautiful wrapped white packages of hamburger, steaks and roasts.  I am grateful to always have more than enough food, to the point I can share with others!

2 – My rice cooker and bread machine – Anyone who has ever made rice only to have crunchy uncooked bits in it – or it come out so mushy it was inedible – would be grateful for a rice cooker.  Alpha Hubby eats a lot of brown rice so a rice cooker is a must.  And since we stopped eating processed foods, I’m back to making whole wheat bread – and that wouldn’t happen without a machine to do all the work!  I am not little-house-in-the-boondock-compatible.  I am the Gadget Queen, all about making my life easier.  Never canned anything in my life (I did make freezer jelly once).  Eating natural does not mean extra work, slaving over something that a machine can do better!

3 – My washer and dryer – (that’s a picture of my wanna-be washer/dryer – my actual ones are 26 years old, which is a miracle in itself and yes, I am super grateful for that… hmm, maybe I’ll just spray paint them red) – I grew up having to go to the laundry mat.  The only benefit of that was once I got my driver’s license, I could finagle the car out of my parents by offering to go to the laundry mat.  Yet as a woman out on my own, I dreamed of a real washer and dryer!  My son was two when the Maytag Dealer in Lafayette Louisiana took a chance on me (longer version of story HERE) and let me pay out a washer/dryer set.  I STILL look at this set and am grateful to that man.

4 – My computer and DSL – well DUH – I mean, come on! I couldn’t be talking to you if I didn’t have a comptuer and internet!    Oh and YES DSL instead of dial up – yes yes yes!   And internet connected me to the world outside of boonie-ville AR.  I am able to enjoy many things that were not available to me just a few short years ago – and not just e-friendships (for which I am very grateful).  Shopping online changed everything.   I think now you can buy anything online – major appliances to toilet paper.  When big-dog-we-think-we-know-better-than-our-customer’s Wal-**rt dropped 500 products from their stores (and almost all ones I used), I was no longer chained to the chain store because I can buy my missing products elsewhere.  And I do.  With gratitude.

So there is my list for today!  Gadgets that make my life easier, nicer, and more fun.