Necessities

When you only own a week's worth of clothes and a couple of pairs of shoes, you REALLY notice when things start to wear out, and since you are wearing and washing everything much more often than you would if you had a larger wardrobe, some of the things wear out faster. I had two shirts with fairly significant holes in them; most of the family had one or more pairs of holey socks; Clay's shoes seemed to be within moments of disintegration. It was getting pretty sad. So, this afternoon, we made the short drive over to the mall to stock up on necessities--new socks for Ruth, Weston, Clay and Jeff, new shoes for Clay, a couple of new shirts for me, and sunglasses for the whole crew for our ski trip next week. When you live in a minimalistic world, you learn to appreciate the few things you have, and something new (even a pair of socks!) seems like a really big deal. Clay, for instance, was so proud of his new socks and shoes that he popped them on his feet as soon as he got out of the shower and certainly would have worn them to bed if we had let him. We are learning to be thankful even for small things, things we might not have even taken note of before. What small things are you thankful for today?