3176 Appreciation, so easy.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

-------------------------------------------------

I can appreciate the smallest things. One of the things I appreciate most about the new house, a few dozen times a day, is the water.

In the old house, the water was so hard that you didn't dare let drops dry on anything. A dried drop would leave a ring of hard gray salts that could be removed only by acid. Everything had to be dried by wiping immediately.

If you let a bowl sit in the sink overnight with water in it, there'd be a hard ring in it by morning.

You wouldn't believe the toilet bowls! The ring at the edge of the water would get so thick it needed an acid soak every month, and scrubbing with a wire brush. There was also silt in the water, so the toilet ring was brown. (Not iron - no iron - silt from the well.)

It was the hard water that killed the washing machine, by building up salts in the shutoff valves, so I had to fill the washer by hand, or it would overflow. And the silt could stain the clothes if I hadn't changed the water filter just before doing laundry.

It's funny how used to inconvenience one can get. For years I just dealt with it. That's what one does.

I appreciate the water here every time I turn a faucet on, and don't have to wipe the sink down immediately. I appreciate it every time I rinse out a bowl and feel the hard rings remaining in it from the old house. I appreciate it when I can leave a pot to soak. I appreciate that it's been more than a month here, and the toilet bowls are still clean and white. I appreciate it when the drops run off the shower curtain, and the curtain looks clean.

I really like how much easier decent water can make life.
.