Not to be confused with a mouth displaying surprise or wonder, I've been thinking about the agape kind of love lately.
It's the kind of love that you don't take for granted. That you give without expecting anything in return. It's unconditional.
It's how I feel about my new dishwasher. (Sorry, did you see that going differently?)
I'm not kidding. I have never felt a greater level of affection for any household appliance (albeit, the new vacuum ranks pretty high too). I haven't had immediate access to a dishwasher since our pool house days (circa 2011), and, let me tell you, I don't ever want to go back.
Our kitchen is clean. All the time. Is this why my friends have had so much more time on their hands? Because you weren't hand-washing all your dishes every night? Because you weren't taking a toothpick to your sippy cup lids to scrape out the crusted milk? (please tell me I'm not the only person who's ever done this.) I feel like a new (and cleaner) person.
I don't even really mind washing dishes by hand. There's a certain nostalgia to using original scent soap that reminds me of washing dishes with my grandma as a kid.
But the time I have gained in my life? And the ease at which I can say to Jake in the evening, "You go play with the girls. I'll clean up." It takes me 10 minutes, for crying out loud! (I typically stray away from exclamation points, but this is how strongly I feel in the proclamation of love).
But enough of the sappy love story and more on the notion of time. Have you ever tried to see how much you could accomplish in a single minute? It's a new, fun stay-at-home mom game I invented. All you do is heat something up in the microwave, hit the "minute" button, and then see much time, but I'm here to tell you that I can go to the bathroom, wash my hands, re-fill my water bottle and make it back to the microwave with time to spare (even while holding a baby on my hip for the last 25 seconds).
I need to get out more.
But really, sometimes I need to be reminded that time doesn't always move as quickly as I think. The excuse to stay inside because of how much time it will take to put on shoes and sunscreen or because of how much time it will take to give baths to wash off sunscreen later (more on how I feel about baths another time) becomes a moot point when I remember how much I can actually accomplish in a minute. It's always worth it to get out.
The sun is shining in Cleveland today--something else Jake reminds me not to take for granted. And, everyone is sleeping (something else I NEVER take for granted). I've got some sun to take advantage of.
I just have to load the dishwasher first.
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