Days 13 - 18

Day 13 of 30 Days of Gratitude. I'm thankful for blogs. I love writing them and I love reading them. Even when I didn't have a place for my column, Window Over the Sink--thank you, Peru Indiana Today, I wrote it in blogs. Review bloggers are a tremendous help to authors. Special interest blogs on virtually anything keep people in a loop they might not be able to reach otherwise. (They also help with research, not that it's all about me or anything.) Some are funny, some heartrending, some impart knowledge both relevant and easy to understand. There are political blogs, religious ones, and ones that will make you mad enough you won't go back there ever again.

If you have a favorite blog or blogs, please feel free to leave a link to them in the comments. Their writers will appreciate it and so will I.

Day 14 of 30 Days. Borrowing--okay, ripping out--a page from my friend Amy Vastine's book today, I'm grateful for Google. While I may miss the sturdy dependability of paper and ink encyclopedias, I love the instant gratification and choices offered by Google.

It is particularly helpful in checking the veracity of virtually every political comment or meme or missing person on Facebook, but sometimes it's just fun. (Smiley Burnette played Gene Autry's sidekick, Frog, in case you were wondering... I thought it was Pat Buttram. Duane wins again.)

Day 15 of 30 Days... I'm grateful for the arts and for chances to learn about and participate in them. Talented artists in local galleries offer lessons in addition to displaying and selling their work. The library has free programs on numerous crafts. There are writers' groups, musical Round Robins and open mic sessions nearby. Community theater at Ole Olsen, Logansport's Civic Players, and Tipton and Wabash theater groups, to name a few, are always looking for members.

I hear (and have probably said) that "there's nothing to do here." Yes, there is--you just have to go out and do it.

Day 16, continued from Day 15... I'm grateful that there are always opportunities to learn things and that it's perfectly okay not to be good at them. That it's not necessary to always be the best as long as you're having a good time and not hurting anybody. That music and art and writing come more from the heart than the hands.

That being said, I'm grateful to the artists, musicians, and writers who share their skills and the things they see and feel with the rest of us.

Day 17 of 30. All about me today... I'm grateful for windows. The one by my desk where I watch the deer, the activities visible when you live on an oasis in the middle of farmland, glorious sunsets, and the changes of the seasons. The Windows OS on the computer which was and continues to be one of the great Mysteries of Life, but added immeasurable joy to the writing process.

And the Window Over the Sink, which I started writing in the late 80s for the Peru Tribune and have written off and on ever since. It's where you've learned more about me than you ever wanted to know, and where (hopefully), I've said what you thought, made you laugh--or cry. It's done more for me than I'm sure a therapist would. My thanks to the people who have read it and still do--you are the best therapy of all.

Day 18 of 30 Days of Gratitude. I am grateful for conversations. Ones that inform, that make you laugh, that give you certainty and/or confidence. Ones that assure you that no, it's not just you. Ones that start with "do you remember" and end with feeling as if you got to visit the time and place you were talking about. Ones that clear the air so that you can go on either together or separately. Ones particularly that end with "Love you" and "Love you, too."