Gratitude Griday, No. 3

I am grateful for our mail carrier in Iowa, whose schedule is such that we get our delivery around 11 am. That's when I'm ready for a quick break to the door after a morning of work at my desk.

Early mail delivery is a necessity for a home-office person. It keeps us sane.

What I am not so grateful for is the mail carrier here in New Hampshire, whose schedule is such that mail often doesn't get delivered until after 5 pm (which means that I have to go out to check the mailbox with a flashlight).

Where's my darn mail? I got none yesterday, thanks to Thanksgiving; I want my mail!

Gratitude Griday, No. 2

I love music. I love listening to music, I love discovering music, and I love making mixes.*

I am grateful that I am alive at a time when it is extremely easy to learn about new music without depending on ClearChannel dronesbroadcast radio.

Thanks to my iPod (curiously missing these past 30 hours [yes, I'm counting in hours], and I'm thinking I may need to worry about this soon), I can have music when I'm practically anywhere.

Thanks to Internet radio, I know that on any given day I will hear something I haven't heard before.

Thanks to online information tools, I can share music with all of you. No one ever commented on the song I embedded a few weeks ago, so I have no idea if project playlist works. I'm trying again.** I think this song is a great way to start the day. You can almost call it a musical morning blessing. Almost.

Oh. And, may I suggest? Listen to it loud.

*And I know I still owe several of you mixes; this knowledege keeps me up at night (not that I'm looking for sympathy, I totally deserve the insomniac guilt). I dare not say "Soon", but that's what I'm thinking.

**The subtle message incorporated in the previous two sentences is: Listen to this and then comment, dagnabbit!

Gratitude Griday

Some people follow themes when they participate in NaBloPoMo. There are all sorts of themes, but the ones I’ve noticed are the “Thirty Days of Thanks” (30 days? Now that’s just too much) or Thankful Thursdays (hmmmm, I wonder why they picked Thursdays. In November…). Now, because of emotional scars carved in memories of sitting around a table, desperately trying to find something to be thankful for, with grumpiness oozing from the people on your right and tears trickling from the people on your left, … I have a difficult time with this forced group lovefest so many in the U.S. enjoy inflicting on one another. And I swore never to make my children do this (pre-gorging, we can make chains of thanks that we can decorate the dining room with—that doesn’t count). And just thinking about ritualistic circle thanks-giving give me the heebie-jeebies.

But, as I’ve grown older, I find myself drawn to the idea. In general. But, being stubborn, and being a slave to my preconceptions, I just can’t do it.

So, I’ve decided to instead have Gratitude Gridays (see, it’s got the alliteration, but I can trick my neuroses this way [‘cause they are on the whole more brawn than brain]).

On this first Gratitude Griday, I am grateful for all of you, my blog readers. You guys are the best. Some of you visit and don’t comment. (That’s OK: you keep coming back, so either you like what you’re reading or you like to hate what you’re reading.) Some of you take the time out of your day to let me know what you think. (Even if your responses can be not at all what I expected. Case in point: my new living room wall art. Sheesh! For the most part you guys hated it. I hadn’t thought it was that bad!)

My mother-in-law has been worried about me. She figures that the Consort is meeting new people at his office in town, the girls are making friends at their new school, but I spend most of my day alone in our teeny tiny house. Didn’t I want to join a club of some kind? Maybe a knitting group? Something? Anything???

Well, sure, I might join some group at some point soon. But, see, my blog friends still visit every day. Keeping me grounded, stoking my ego, sharing ideas, and just stopping by to chat. (I have a hard time explaining blog friendships to people who don’t “do” blogs.) Many of you I would never have met otherwise. Longitude and latitude would have taken care of that. And even if we did happen to live near each other: in the same neighborhood or town, our lives are so different that we may never have taken the time to “discover” each other. But I’m glad we did.

You, my readers, keep me connected. And I’m grateful.