There are many little buttons in my cute little yellow beetle, but the best button of all, besides the one that takes the top down, is the butt warmer….uh, I mean seat warmer.  Twenty years ago, I would never have thought this would be the most wonderful invention ever and that I would actually have a car with butt warmers, but I do. On those cold, below zero windchill Nebraska mornings, I pull out of the garage and my bottom is already feeling the love.  I feel completely spoiled and absolutely grateful.

It takes experiencing being without to be really grateful.  Before I bought the beetle I had a 13 year old Pontiac with the basics and definitely no seat warmers.  On cold days I hoped the heat kicked on before I got home from school.  The first time I turned on the seat warmers in the beetle I just smiled and I’ve been grateful for them each and every cold day since.

Doug and I have practice in being without.  For example, when we decided to get married, that’s about all we decided.  We pulled together enough money for rings and the wedding itself, and knew we were going to live in married housing which was a lovely efficiency with a pullout bed in a bright orange vinyl couch.  We didn’t think ahead to actually needing furniture when he graduated.  We made just enough money to eat, pay rent and put gas in the car.  I can remember taking five dollars to the grocery store and it was a game to see how much I could buy with that.  We were young and in love and we made it work.  Every time I go the grocery store today I am grateful that I can pretty much buy what I want because we’re in a much better position obviously.  It is a luxury I don’t take for granted because not so long ago we had to scrimp and count pennies to get what we needed.

Our first real apartment after Doug got his first job, had no furniture and well, we didn’t either.  For the first month we lived there our bed consisted of all of the blankets and quilts we owned on the floor with our pillows.  Our dining room table was an old coffee table given to us and we sat on the floor.  The most important piece was a wood plank and cement block shelving unit that housed Doug’s turntable and and our records.  Our new neighbor felt sorry for us and loaned us an air mattress and we thought we had died and gone to heaven.  Today, when I have to crawl up into our beautiful four poster canopy bed under the soft sheets I am grateful because I know what it feels like, even for a short time to be without it.

While I will never really understand what it is like to live in poverty, I do understand what is like to be the working poor.  Those times when you have to decide what you can pay for and what can wait, doing without so your kids can have what they need, taking the bus instead of driving, searching every pocket and seat cushion to see if you can find enough change to take the kids to get ice cream.  It makes me so very grateful for all of the little luxuries we have now, and I try to always take a few minutes each day to say thank you for those.

I’m not sharing this so someone can feel sorry for me, I’m actually grateful for those experiences.  Some of them were really hard and made us work together as a couple or family.  While sometimes I wish I had been a better planner (I blame it on being really young), these experiences taught me to be creative, resourceful and GRATEFUL for when things became easier later.  I’m not sure I would have felt the same if I had had those material things early on.

So now I begin every day being thankful for a warm bed, food for breakfast, a car to drive to school in, a job to drive to and warm clothes to wear.  I am grateful for silly little things like getting my hair colored or getting pedicures.  I am grateful for family and friends and I am so grateful for my butt warmers.  Because they remind me of how lucky I am.