Changes

Today I am holed up in my office. Music plays on the radio. Lamplight gives the room a cheery feel. A candle fragrances the air. Photos of family smile at me. It is a cozy place to hang when outside it is cold, gray, and snow flakes flutter to the ground.

I think this is a Landmark Year for me. It is the end of February. Tomorrow March begins. It is snowing outside, if only ineffectively. The temp outside is hovering at 32 and the snow mostly melts when it hits the ground. This is the best of both worlds. I see the loveliness of the snow, but there won't be any shoveling to do later. In February that is always good news, because by now, I've usually had my fill of shoveling.

So why is this a Landmark Year? Because even with the gray skies I am feeling very even-keeled about the weather. It hasn't always been so. In fact, I was a little afraid to say anything until I survived the month without losing my senses and collapsing into despair even if only for a moment. Winter tends to try my sense of optimism at least once. For proof, go back to 2010 and read this post. http://viewfromanemptynest-connie.blogspot.com/2010/02/some-days-view-is-just-plain-cloudy.html
But this year, so far, so good!

Change doesn't come easily to me. (I alluded to that in my last post!) After many years in a warm, sunny--let me repeat that--SUNNY climate I was surprised at how hard I found the initial impact of a northern winter. I had grown up in Pennsylvania, so I figured it wouldn't be that hard. I expected the lack of sun to be harder than the cold and it was, but even more than I was prepared for. After 5 years, I seemed to have turned the corner on that albatross.

There may be some simple reasons for this improved outlook. The first one is simply Time. I've had time to adjust.

I first noticed a change of attitude last Fall. As the leaves disappeared I didn't groan in anticipation of a long, cold winter. I was back to my childhood self of enjoying each season as it came. Fall, followed by the 'holiday season' of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, which leads into True Winter--That season that has few distractions, except, perhaps, Valentine's Day.

There was another aspect that may have helped my attitude. Larry travels extensively in the winter. The first few years we were here I told people if we had a snowstorm, Larry was in Minneapolis. Because he usually was! In fact I remember getting up one morning to see his tire tracks in the newly fallen snow in the driveway. It had snowed overnight, but he had left at 5AM for the airport...leaving me to clear the sidewalks, steps and driveway.

This year our first snow occured over Christmas...and he was here to clear it out! I liked that! Of course, he was gone every other time it snowed, but you win some, you lose some.

He was also around in January a little more than usual. So that means I wasn't alone perhaps as much. And best of all, we haven't been inundated with blizzards or heavy snowfalls.

Whatever the reasons, the truth is still good news. I made it through February without losing it. I know spring will get here someday, but I'm no longer silly enough to think the month of March has anything to do with that! If anything, March is one more month to get through cheerfully. And I'm pretty sure I can do that.

I'll just keep the lights on, the music playing and light another candle.

The Little Miracles We Take For Granted

Steve Jobs once said "It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."
-- Business Week, May 25 1998

The other day I was sitting at my computer when the phone rang. Larry was calling from Phoenix, where he had just landed. He sounded tired. It was understandable. This is the time of year when he spends more time in airports and airplanes than at home. He had flown out of Pittsburgh early that morning. However, he didn't just sound tired. He sounded aggravated.

"What are you doing?" he wanted to know.
"Not much," I said. "Where are you?"
"I'm sitting at the freaking car rental and I CAN'T rent a car!"
This wasn't sounding good, so I proceeded with caution. "Ohh, hmm, uh, (pause) er, why not?"

Deep sigh, disgust, frustration...."because I left my driver's license going through security at the airport."

Here is where I suddenly experience a rapid series of wild imaginings. Stolen drivers license, identity theft, long months of tiresome work trying to get a mess straightened out.

"So," he continued, "you need to head out to the airport to pick it up and overnight it to me."

OHH! "You mean, they have it?" I asked in disbelief.
"Yes, I called my travel agent and he checked and TSA has it. You just have to go get it and send it out to me."

So, I did just that. I headed to the airport. I wasn't sure where to go when I walked inside. I saw a man in a gray uniform and asked, uncertainly, if he was TSA? No, he wasn't but could he help?

"My husband left his driver's license here this morning." "Rosenberry?" he asked.

Really? The first person I talk to knows exactly why I'm there? He told me where to find TSA and 10 minutes later I was walking back to the car with Larry's drivers license. (Don't worry. I did have to show proof of who I was.)

I had no idea where there was a Fed-Ex office so I pulled out my iPhone, opened maps, typed in Fed-Ex and discovered there was one 3 miles away. I had parked about 25 yards from the terminal door and before I had gotten back to the car, I had directions in hand.

Fifteen minutes later I was leaving Fed-Ex. Larry would have his license by 8:30 the next morning.

There are so many ways this could have gone wrong. But it didn't. And that's really not the point I want to make. Instead I am in awe of how easily everything worked. And I am suddenly appreciative of the many conveniences we have today.

First of all, Kudos to TSA! The people at the security checkpoint did just what they are expected to do. Sometimes people don't, so it's important to recognize them when they do. That was the first hurdle.  Finding, protecting and getting the license was done. Transport was the next one. Not so long ago that would have been the hard part.

I don't embrace change quickly. When cell phones came out I thought they were ridiculous. Who couldn't handle being away from the phone for the 30 minutes it took to get from work to home? I have an iPhone now but it's an iPhone3 that I got when I traded in my falling-apart-old-cell phone that couldn't even text. The iPhone4 had just come out so the iPhone3 was free if I signed up for a 2-year plan.

I remember Steve Jobs making that quote about designing things for people they didn't even know they wanted. As much as I admired Jobs, and love Apple products, I scoffed at his assumption that it was up to him to figure out what we wanted before we knew we wanted it! I scoff no more. Not all that long ago Larry would have been calling long distance from a pay phone. Overnight delivery was non-existent. We paid extra for airmail that took 3 days to get there. This would have been a major event.

Thanks to Steve Jobs, Fred Smith (founder of FedEx), and other visionaries, we live in a world of convenience that we often take for granted. I may scoff at most new inventions but I'm glad there are creative people who imagine them. I'm grateful for the crazy fanatics that wait in line for hours before every release, thus ensuring it's initial success. And if those new fangled gadgets hang around long enough I'll jump on the band wagon and benefit from all the ways they improve my life.

I love my laptop. Who knows? Maybe someday I'll finally own an iPad.