Have you ever noticed that the things that happen to make you realize you take things for granted are never a positive experience? It's not like you wake up one bright sunny day, the temp is perfect inside and outside, your house is clean, your kids are behaved, everything is perfect and you get slapped with the realization..."I am so thankful that my furnace works!"

I don't know, maybe you do. I am not saying that I am not aware of how blessed I am. I feel that I lived a charmed life, really. But sometimes the Lord just has to take the time to let me know, specifically, what it would be like to live without our luxuries.

This past week or so, I have been very aware that there is great blessing being able to reach over, turn a little handle and get hot water. I honestly have no memory of a hot water heater in one of my houses ever going out. Ever. Not as a kid, not as an adult. I have been aware that they do go out, but I have never experienced it. Until last week.

It all started Wednesday with J-Bell going to switch laundry over and coming up saying that there is water all over the floor in the basement. I go down and realize that the water is dripping from the copper pipe connected to the pressure relief valve. Remember, I have not lived through this. Not only was it new to me that there was a pressure relief valve, but I didn't realize that there was a pipe in the back of the heater. I knew about the draining faucet things at the bottom, the water intake, but not this pipe. I shut the water off to the heater.

I call Knight. He doesn't even know who I can call. And he is an hour away with work to finish up. I'm on my own. So I do the sensible thing. I call my friend and ask her, not really expecting an answer, but just in case. She doesn't even have the pipe I'm talking about. So she calls her hubby, who diagnoses my problem as the pressure relief valve by talking to her. Then he tells her who I need to call. It's a mutual friend/acquaintance. I call and they can come in a couple hours.

I call Knight, who is talking to someone and they have an experiment to try to figure out if it's the thermostat or the valve. They want me to turn the water on, but turn the power off with the theory that if it's the valve, it will keep leaking and if it's the thermostat it will stop leaking once the water cools down. I try that and it stops leaking.

The repair guy comes, sees that the thermostat isn't in correctly anyway and blames that (it's worked the almost 7 years we've been here but whatever!) puts it in right, turns the power on and tells me to watch it. Thanks. It starts leaking 4 hours later. I call the next day and tell him it's still leaking. He's busy (four wheeling) and will come the next day (Friday).

He comes, changes the valve. It's not leaking by this point. Go figure. But I don't like to play these games. Let's just get it fixed and then I don't have to watch and see if I have water in my basement. (thankfully there is a drain in the floor close to the heater so it doesn't go everywhere) Knight and I think it's the thermostat but what do we know. It fixes it. At least that's what we thought.

Monday we get the bill. $85 bucks. For a valve.

Tuesday I go to wash my hands and burn myself on the tap water. Great! Our heater is turned down enough where a two year old couldn't get burned and now it spikes on it's own. Another call to the guy. He's out of state. He'll call when he's back in town.

Knock on the door on wed morning has him here, with a thermostat. He changes it and just charges for the part. An even $100. But now the thermostat and the valve is changed.

Thursday night I go to take a shower and there is no hot water. I head down and look at the heater. The thermostat has a reset button that has popped. I hit it and the thing starts working again. I get to take a luke warm shower at 10pm, but at least I get to take one.

Friday, J-bell lets me know that when she went to take a shower there was no hot water. I go down and hit the stupid button again. I have hot water today (so far).

I am very reminded of the blessing of hot water. "Yes, Lord. I hear you. I am thankful for the simple things, like hot water. I get it. Now, can you keep my hot water heater working??"

I truly do live a charmed life here in paradise. I still have not had to live a day without hot water. It might not have been ready every time I wanted it, but I have been able to shower daily. Will my adventure with my hot water heater continue? Wait and see....