Trash Day

Today is Trash Day.  I'm grateful today for plastic trash bags/trash can liners.  It is so nice to not have to scrub out the trash can every time it gets emptied!  I'm thankful that we have curbside trash pick-up, and curbside recycling to encourage us to recycle some of the excess packaging and paper, cardboard and plastic that we seem to generate these days.  I am grateful for much of the packaging that helps keep our food clean and vermin free and helps to cut down on food waste.

I'm thankful for the incentive that Trash Day is to me to do a bit of de-cluttering and cleaning.  This morning I was motivated to clean out the refrigerator.  I won't say how long it has been since I tackled this chore (I can't even remember exactly), but I did find a small container of leftover homemade cranberry sauce among all of the other delightful surprises that have been lurking inside the fridge.

 It appears that the family may not have been overly thrilled by all of the homemade split pea soup, beef stew and goulash that have been prepared over the past few weeks, but I am grateful that I have been able to put good and nourishing food on the table every evening.   I am grateful to have a refrigerator to keep perishables cold and edible.  Many of the people I knew when I lived in Colombia did not have the luxury of a refrigerator.  I'm grateful that I don't have to go to the market every single day in order to have fresh food available for meals.  I'm thankful for the clean glass shelves in my refrigerator that allow me to easily see where the pickle jar is and the new package of unopened yeast that was hiding behind all of the leftovers.  I wasn't extremely happy about all of the dishes that needed to be washed, but now I'm grateful for a plethora of clean dishes and storage containers that I can once again fill up with leftovers! 

Ah, the many myriad blessings of Trash Day!