An "ODD" Thanks This Thanksgiving

Somewhere along the way, I read an idea that became our family tradition at Thanksgiving.  Each person’s place setting had two popcorn kernels. After dinner, we took turns putting our kernels into a bowl while simultaneously saying the two things we were most thankful for that year.  It was a great way to remember the first Thanksgiving.   

The popcorn kernels were symbolic of the first winter when so many pilgrims died from starvation and disease.  Of course, after the Native Americans taught them how to plant corn, the next year they celebrated a year of harvest and thanksgiving together!

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to jointly verbalize our thanks, but quite honestly, my answers are usually the same….good health and family.  While those two are still at the top of my list, this year I have a very ODD THANKS at the top of my list, at least near the top – Technology!  

Now THIS is the girl that fought tooth and nail to not give up my Xerox memory typewriter for a word processor!   My husband kept saying, “It’s soooo much easier to type on the computer!!  You can even move whole paragraphs around!”  I would naively answer, “You cannot convince me that that thing is easier than my electric memory typewriter – no way!”  

Or how about the Christmas when microwaves were new on the horizon and I said, “Whatever you do, DON’T get me a microwave!”  The instant flush of color in my husband’s face told the whole story.  

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of days that I would love to throw something at my computer if it weren’t so expensive to replace!   I’ve actually gotten pretty good at making sure I have a project to work on while I wait 30 minutes for customer service, only to find out they cannot answer my question and I have to wait on hold another 30 minutes for a “higher level”!!  We've all been there, right???

With all the projects I have had going on this year though, I have gained an appreciation for the fact that we live in an AMAZING day and age!!!  We can literally learn pretty much anything we want to learn on the internet!  It just takes time and persistence.

We recently kept our grandsons and were reminiscing to them about watching man’s first steps on the moon on live television.  It dawned on me…."YouTube!"  As I was pulling up the video of Neil Armstrong, I told my grandsons, “You guys have no idea how amazing it is that you can just look up anything in history on the internet!  We had to go to the library and look it up in the encyclopedia!”  ​  

I’m sure you can guess what came next…."What’s an encyclopedia?"  LOL!!

With all of the disasters around the world this year, I am sure most of us will be expressing thanks for the gift of life and our basic needs...food, water, shelter.  I have been on enough missions trips to never take clean drinking water and a hot shower for granted!

If you have any trouble finding something to be thankful for this year, take a look at this clever video that went viral....if you haven’t seen it already!  

​May each of you have a very blessed Thanksgiving!  I’m thankful for YOU!
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Love,
Marlowe