One invention that we didn't have when I was growing up was a paper shredder.  I remember tearing things into tiny pieces to destroy them.  But with every advantage--paper shredder--comes a possible disaster.  Have you ever turned one upside down, up into the air when it was full of shredded paper?  That's what I did this morning.

It wouldn't have been so bad if it had been over carpet, tile, etc.  But I upended it over a glass of water which got knocked over in the process, 20-30 pages of books and paper I was trying to sort.  And my chair--need I go on.  It was a colossal mess.  It is still a colossal mess and will be until I shake everything out that is covered in tiny pieces of paper and wipe up the water.  And then the only thing I can do is break out the vacuum sweeper and hope for the best.  What a mess.

I was trying to be careful.  It made no difference.  I think everyone should upend a paper shredder flying through the air in their lifetime.  It makes you thankful for another invention we didn't have when I was growing up:  a vacuum sweeper.  We only had brooms and dust mops.  You used the dust mop on wood floors that had been waxed to a shine with Johnston's Wax.  I don't remember anyone having carpet.  We had throw rugs.  Which had to be taken out each week and hung over a clothes line.  Then you would beat the rugs with a wire contraption until the rugs didn't spew dust anymore.

I remember saying to my Gran, "You had it so much harder back when you were raising a family."  She answered me by saying, "We washed outside in a tub, hung everything on the line to dry and threw the wash water on the kitchen floors and swept them with a broom.  The water ran through the cracks in the floor to the dirt below, and the chickens were glad to find a cool place to hunker down.  We didn''t have to keep things "Pretty" like you do today.  In some ways, it was easier."  Can you imagine carrying heavy loads of wash water into the house to clean floors!  And Gran was probably barefoot and pregnant.  She had 6 children.  I don't know how she did it without a vacuum.

Nobody waxes floors anymore.  Floors come with a permanent shine.  And when that wears off, you paint a new shine on that lasts as long as the first one did.  Or strip it out and lay a new floor.
Polyurethane put Johnston's wax out of business.  And Hoover put the oil mop out of business.  Things change.  God stays the same.  Today, tomorrow, and forever.  That's a good thing.