I’ve read the articles. I know that the first things you should do when you wake up in the morning are hydrate, stretch, meditate.  I break all the rules and reach for my phone.  I check for text messages and then quickly scroll through Facebook and Instagram, first and foremost looking for pics of my grandkids, but also happy to keep up with what’s happening with friends, family and the world in general.

This past Sunday morning I was doing a quick scroll through Instagram when I thought – hey, that looks just like my shower!  What a surprise, there on Mr. Smith’s Instagram feed was a photo of our shower.  

I have a great shower.  It’s the best shower I’ve ever had in my whole life.  Every morning, I relish in the luxury of this shower and how good it makes me feel when I start my day.

Then he posted a picture of a soap package.

And then I ran into this bar of soap at the store and became familiar with “The Right to Shower” and their mission.  It’s a great bar of soap, but more importantly, it contributes to an effort to make a decent shower accessible to those who normally wouldn’t have access, in particular, the homeless.

The Right to Shower is a charity project of Unilever.  It is based on the premise that access to cleanliness is a fundamental human right.   Their products include body washes and bar soap, made in the USA and not tested on animals.  I plan to check out the Hope Body Wash to “…feel soothed from the caring and pampering effects of creamy aloe and dewy moss with a touch of avocado, sweet clover and sage…”

My husband has surprised me many times over the years with his thoughtfulness and his insights.  There have been bouquets of peonies, bottles of bubbly, and special dinners.  We often read the same book and our subsequent discussions have been eye opening and surprising as he often has a different perspective than mine.  Seeing a photo of our shower on his Instagram feed Sunday morning was simply the most recent of over 40 years of surprises.

But perhaps what I should be most surprised by here is not that he still surprises me, but that I’m surprised when he does.  We are lucky people.

C’est la vie.