Catching Up

I see that it has been almost a week since I have been here. It was a long week and threatening to be cold since the furnace quit twice. It seems to be running smoothly now, thank God and the young man who did such a great job of fixing it.

It has been unusually warm, beautiful weather and I hope that the winter is mild and filled with gentle rain. Next week is Thanksgiving already and then quickly after that, Christmas. Many of us will be glad when this year is over, I think and we hope that next year will be better and dread that next year will be worse.

It is up to us all really to take the dread out of it and make sure that it is better. It is a different kind of catching up; catching up to a more old-fashioned notion of community and economy that is built locally from the ground up or over the Internet by seeking out small businesses who are on the web because the local areas alone would not support them

Over the past decade I have extended my community to include used booksellers that I have found through Advanced Book Exchange and found books from all over this country and from Ireland. I have found beautiful yarn, hand-dyed by women who have set up their shops on Ebay and I have begun my own endeavors, my Mary Kay business, Cafepress shop and Etsy shop to add my little bit.

I like this idea of catching up to an older economy of small businesses and entrepreneurs by using modern technology--the Internet and long distance shipping companies to combine small with global. I could never have traveled to all of the places that I have purchased things from or that people are in who have purchased from me--my carbon footprint would have been enormous if I had done so.

We can all catch up to the economy and rebuild prosperity if we stop being afraid. Let's not dread the New Year, but plan how we can circumvent corporate jumbo businesses and support one another.