Thumbs

Prepare yourself, this is going to be cheesy.

Today for the first time ever - in all my 38 years living with them - I realized that my thumbs are a blessing!  Like most things we take for granted, it is only after they are gone that we truly recognize them as being huge parts of our lives, deserving of honors, accolades, and even a hero-parade or two.

No, my thumbs are not missing, but my left thumb is sprained.  Sprained so much that I can barely type.  It happened yesterday while hefting an enormous load of laundry.  "That must have been some load," you chuckle.  And yes, it was.

Not wanting to do laundry the week of Christmas, since it is a chore I hate, I put it off until it could be put off no longer.  The mountain of soiled clothing was, well...mountainous and it was threatening to topple.  If that had happened, we'd all have been buried in an avalanche of stinky underwear, and that is not how I plan to leave this life!  So I took one for the team and started what turned out to be a seven hour job.

Granted, I only do my own laundry (and my husband's), my kids are on their own.

Too many times I saw college friends ruin dry-clean only clothes by tossing them in the washer.  I vowed that my own kids would know the difference between detergent and fabric softener, and comfortably know their way around the dials on the Kenmore manifold.  (But 'children doing their own laundry' is a topic for another post.)

Back to my thumb...

It kills, and I blame the pain on laundry - the one housecleaning chore I would hire out if I could.

Meanwhile, as I blunder around thumbless, wincing as I try to hang up a coat, crying out in pain as I wash my hair, I am also feeling immense gratitude for the opposable digits that have never once registered on my gratitude meter.  Until today.

Here's to thumbs!  They are more important than we know.  And they deserve more than the occasional war with your neighbor during a particularly boring meeting.          

Count your blessings...they're right under your nose (or thumb, in this case)

Love to you,

Sylva Leining