May 22nd

There's a couple of things I'm very grateful for today.

After the awesome group energy of yesterday, today was a day for Ben and me.

A couple of days ago, a friend online had asked if anyone was interested in an overlocker - used once, still in the box.  I immediately (like, within 19 seconds) said yes.  And today we went and picked it up.

Meet my new machine!

We decided to coordinate our four hour round trip around breakfast and a coffee date with the beautiful Carly, the provider of my brand new machine (*squeeee*).  I love that I live in a world where items that are no longer needed or used, are offered up to be loved by someone new.  I also love that I could then on-sell my (laden with past life heaviness) overlocker to another home in need.  Perfection.

The second thing I am grateful for, is a man's need to tinker.

And a man's need to figure out how things work - and then *make* them work!

Have you ever had to thread an overlocker?

Oh my.

This is a five threader, but you get the idea, right?  Eep!

So, while I was busy attaching more boosters onto more pads, Ben was threading the overlocker and then serging even more boosters (enjoying the fruits of his labour).  We had a wonderful afternoon stitching together *smile*.

I was contemplating this train of thought, as I was stitching earlier...

I am very grateful for the ability to dedicate a whole day and evening (and another afternoon planned for tomorrow) to helping people achieve something they could not do on their own.  I started thinking about my gorgeous friends yesterday, who turned up on my doorstep, arms laden with sewing machines, fabric and children and contributed an amazing effort, despite the constant up-down, up-downs of parenting small children.  And how one of the gifts of not having children in my life full time, is my capacity to contribute my undivided time and attention to causes just like this.

Ben told me a story of how one of the many counter-arguments he would give in support of his choice to not have children (a stance he has found he has needed to explain and at times, almost defend since his decision more than ten years ago), is how he is able to positively impact the lives of so many more children (if he chose to) by not having his time and focus 100% taken up by his own, had he had them.

Knowing myself first hand, just how energy demanding children can be, I really resonated with that sentiment yesterday and today.  And I felt very grateful that, while at times sharing my daughter with her father is incredibly hard, it also frees my time to help others.  And I think that's wonderful.

And now this post is done, we're off to cut out some more cloth pads!

I plan to crack that 100 mark *grin*.

Enjoy your evening!