For years, I've smiled sympathetically at signs proclaiming "Bless this Mess" - with three kids, I can relate to a little clutter and dust.
Then, when I became a full-time stay-at-home-mom and realized my kids had a casual relationship with the concept of clean, messiness threatened to overwhelm me and my house. Out of desperation, I found and began following Flylady. I can't say I follow her admonishments to the letter by any means, but a couple of her guidelines have stood me in good stead: I shine my kitchen sink each night, and I have learned to appreciate the idea of blessing my family with a clean and tidy home, instead of blessing a mess.
And yesterday, that weekly house blessing was truly a blessing. I scrubbed our shower and turned on both shower heads to rinse away the cleanser. (The 2nd shower head rarely gets used otherwise.) That's when I discovered that it was frozen. It's on an outside wall, and our temps have been beyond cold. That also caused me to realize that the toilet we thought had a faulty shutoff was probably also suffering from frozen pipe syndrome (FPS is pretty common condition this time of year, although we haven't dealt with it until now - in a brand-new bathroom addition finished less than a year ago. Argh.)
A trusty little ceramic heater managed to dethaw* both pipes. We were lulled to sleep last night by the sound of a slow drip, drip, drip in the shower, and the sporadic hum of the space heater kicking on in the water closet. We awoke this morning to both the shower and the toilet operating properly.
So thank you, Flylady. If not for the weekly house blessing she encourages, I might have not turned on the shower head, which hopefully prevented some busted water lines.
*dethaw - a Southernism, combining "thaw" and "defrost" into one great oxymoron. Speaking of which, I need to dethaw my freezer soon...
