I have a beautiful brand-new kitchen (4 years old) and it is my favorite place in the house. It's bright, warm, functional, and colorful. I try to be generous with my kitchen; I let other people use it and mess it up. But truthfully, I do think of it as MY kitchen. Perhaps that's wrong of me. Maybe I'll explore that someday. Probably not. So, as I think of it as my space, I do have some standing requests of others when they use it. Like, when you spill on the counter, clean-up is easiest immediately following the spill. It takes a lot more effort to clean off dried up, turned-into-cement gunk than it does to wipe up right away. If I had a nickel for everytime....Broken record, anyone?
A milkshake was made last night. Drips were dropped on the counter. They were left there overnight. I'm not naming any names. This is a perfect example of something that would be nothing to wipe up when it happened, but instead takes actual elbow grease this morning. It's good to keep my muscles working. There was one kinda big blob that didn't want to leave the counter, so rather than fight with it, I put a damp paper towel on it and walked away. When I came back 30 minutes later, it was rehydrated and came up easy-peasy.
Listen, drips happen. The only way to be guaranteed drip-free is to be milkshake-free, and nobody wants that. Do we recognize that after the drips, we have choices about how to deal with them? Do we choose immediate attention, deferred attention and then full-on wrestling, or softening and waiting?
We make choices all the time. I like to choose on purpose. The first step is to recognize that I am in fact, making a choice, then pick the one I really want. Milkshakes for everyone!
