Lights and Switches

This December I'm participating in An Advent of Gratitude to help remind me of the gifts I already have, what I often take for granted, and what I can and should be grateful for.

Today I was asked to count the light switches in my house and pay a quarter for each one. 

If you've been reading here for a while, you know that my house used to have quite a few more occupants back when the kids were all at home.  Now it's just Hubby Tony, me, a couple of cats, and a lot of excess space. (Except during the holidays, when everyone comes back for a visit.)

I guess it makes sense that a large house would have a lot of switches  Each of the four bedrooms has one. The dining and laundry rooms have controls at either end, as do the stairs to the basement and upstairs levels.  The kitchen and family rooms have zoned lighting, with switches for each area.  Each room in the basement has its own light source, along with its own switch.  And we can't forget the ones for the front, deck, basement, and garage doors, which turn on the lights directly outside them.

This morning before I rolled out of bed I tried to mentally count up all the switches.  After breakfast walked around the house and did a physical count to see how close I was, and was pleased to find out that both numbers were the same.  Hubby Tony is also doing the challenge, and he counted independently. We compared answers, which were close but not exact.  After we discussed exactly what the phrase 'light switch' meant (for example, should we include the switches that turned on the garbage disposal and bathroom ceiling fans or not) we agreed that there were 38.

In the end I rounded up my answer to 40, which made my donation a nice even $10.