November is one of my favorite months. I'm a big wimp about heat so I'm cranky for a lot of the summer and I usually spend most of September just waiting for the weather to cool off enough that I can wear jeans. Of course, I'm also a big wimp about cold - there's really a pathetically small window of temperatures that I consider comfortable - but at least when it's cold, I can layer on clothes and get all cozy under big blankets, while heat is just, well, hot. Anyway, in San Diego, we don't really get consistently cool weather until at least November. Plus, once Halloween is over, the stores start gearing up for the gift-giving holidays, and I just find it a happier time of year. And of course, November means Thanksgiving. What's not to love about a holiday devoted to food, family and thinking about the things we should be grateful for?
To get in the spirit (and to prod myself into posting more regularly), I decided I don't need to wait for Turkey Day specifically to start giving thanks. So I'm going to try to do at least one post a week where I give thanks for something good in my life. Of course there are the biggies, like my family, friends, health, house, job but I think it's important to also give thanks for the little things that make my life better every day. And I thought it would be appropriate to start this series by giving thanks for the internet. When I stop and think about how much better and easier my life is because of the internet, it's hard to exaggerate what a huge impact it has. It makes my job easier, it allows me to easily and cheaply keep in touch with friends all over the country (and world), it makes shopping and traveling easier, I could go on and on. I have only a vague notion that it was developed by government researchers and I don't really understand how it works but part of its wonderfulness is that I don't have to. Every time I send an email or google an address or Skype someone, I'm doing something that wasn't possible twenty years ago. And every once in a while, it occurs to me to think, 'How cool is that?!?'
What are you grateful for?
To get in the spirit (and to prod myself into posting more regularly), I decided I don't need to wait for Turkey Day specifically to start giving thanks. So I'm going to try to do at least one post a week where I give thanks for something good in my life. Of course there are the biggies, like my family, friends, health, house, job but I think it's important to also give thanks for the little things that make my life better every day. And I thought it would be appropriate to start this series by giving thanks for the internet. When I stop and think about how much better and easier my life is because of the internet, it's hard to exaggerate what a huge impact it has. It makes my job easier, it allows me to easily and cheaply keep in touch with friends all over the country (and world), it makes shopping and traveling easier, I could go on and on. I have only a vague notion that it was developed by government researchers and I don't really understand how it works but part of its wonderfulness is that I don't have to. Every time I send an email or google an address or Skype someone, I'm doing something that wasn't possible twenty years ago. And every once in a while, it occurs to me to think, 'How cool is that?!?'
What are you grateful for?
1 comment:
YES, the Internet! I really do believe that it is THE greatest invention of our generation. It has revolutionized our world in the way nothing has since TV. When I remember how hard it was to access information in my youth, how it meant a trip to the library for some outdated book that would have to be ordered from another more distant branch, I'm blown away by how much information is literally at my fingertips. When my mom started using the web, she'd ask me if she could look up this or that, and I kept repeating, "You can find out anything you want to know on the Internet" until it became our little mantra. :) I'll be surprised if another development of this magnitude appears in our lifetime.
Hah! I know just how you feel about the weather! I often say the same thing, that I have a narrow range of optimal temperature. In the NY metro region, we usually have bitterly cold winters and abominably hot summers and reach optimal temperature in Sept.-Oct. and April-May. This year, though, we barely had a summer. I was grateful, but my concern about global warming implications overshadowed my gratefulness.
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