10 on Tues.day: inventions

10 Inventions That Have Made My Life Easier

1. ATMs. Where would our family be today without a worldwide demand for ATMs?

2. Drive-up windows. These were invented about a decade too late for maximum benefit. How I wish I could have gotten bread and milk without parading 4 toddlers past cookies, candy and toys to the back corner of the grocery store! Not to mention hamburgers, library books, utility bills, bank transactions, mailing letters, etc.

3. Spell check. If I am not the world's worst speller, I am darn close to it. Spell check makes my life SOOO much easier.

4. Digitized Swedish church records. This has saved me untold hours of driving back and forth to SLC, looking for parking, pulling reels from metal cabinets, and cranking through miles of microfilm. Now I sit in the comfort of my home and see what I need with the click of a mouse.

5. 50 gallon hot water heater. We had a 5 gallon hot water heater when we were first married. How did we ever make that work? 20 gallons of hot water with a family of eight wasn't easy either. Laundry, baths and washing dishes were done on schedule. Now we don't even think twice. Add to this a dishwasher and washing machine. I had 4 children before I had either of them and they greatly simplified my household duties.

6. Fridge with ice dispenser and auto defrost. It hasn't been too many years since our fridge only had a small freezer section that had to be defrosted monthly and ice cube trays that had to be emptied and filled manually. My mother was half way through her childhood before they even had an ice box - a metal lined box with a block of ice delivered by an ice man - for keeping milk and butter cold.In the days before mechanical refrigeration, cutting ice each winter was an important part of the preparations for the coming summer. With no other way to keep perishables cool and fresh during hot weather, private homes, as well as businesses handling fresh foods, used insulated ice boxes holding one to several blocks of ice to keep food safe from spoilage.
7. Disposable diapers. I should give Mr. Huggies a hug for getting these on the market in the nick of time. I used cloth diapers, safety pins and plastic pants on my first few babies so I have infinite appreciation for how much easier disposable diapers made life for a young mother.

8. Digital cameras. I used to hesitate taking photos because of the cost of film and developing. Now I fill my card every other day and only print the few pictures I need on paper. It makes photography so fun!

9. Audio books. These make long drives tolerable. They make it possible for me to "read" the fantasy fiction I would never have had time for before, such as Nephites in Tennis Shoes, Harry Potter, Eragon series, Twilight series, Orson Scott Card, etc. And they make it possible for me to hear gospel classics over and over again. What a blessing!

10. Photoshop & digital scrapbooking. I started keeping baby books, scrap books and books of remembrance over forty years ago. My love for record keeping was made SOOO much easier once I could do it digitally. It's such an easy, quality, permanent way to pass family history from one generation to the next.