Thankful Thursday

It’s so good to intentionally think of things to be thankful for. Especially if your mind tends to go towards the  negative as mine is prone to do...

First, I am thankful that Ohio passed a parental consent law regarding social media usage and minors. I don’t know all of the particulars about it. It really doesn’t impact me even though I have a minor. (I think it pertains to minors 16 and younger and Alyssa is 17 years old.) But my minor is about to be an adult and I am aware of what social media platforms she uses. In general, I don’t think social media is good for kids/ teens; my feelings aside, it is a huge part of the cultural zeitgeist especially for that cohort. Having parents consent to kids’ social media usage is a small step towards what will hopefully be, at a minimum, discussions between parent and child regarding social media usage, dangers of, time limits on, etc.

I have a few social media stories but for the sake of brevity, I will limit my anecdotes to one. I first became familiar with Instagram in about 2011 or 12. Jacob was in 6th grade. He had a phone but it didn’t connect to the internet. He had an iPad and one day I noticed the IG symbol which I had never seen before. I clicked on the icon and up popped Jacob’s IG page. Now this was in the halcyon days of IG. Each post consisted of one photo. There were no reels. There were no multiple photos for a post. There was no sponsored content (Ok, maybe there was but it wasn’t nearly as common as it is today). The company whose founder created an app to rate females’ appearance on his college campus hadn’t purchased it yet. 

It was obvious this was a photo sharing app. I noticed links for the words followers and following. I clicked both of the links and I was taken to the IG pages of students, many whose names I recognized. It was interesting to say the least to see what kids posted. One person whom Jacob followed had some posts that contained offensive words in the posts. They were swear words. Yes, I’m a square and I don’t like swear words! I don’t say them and I don’t like to be exposed to them. I certainly don’t/ didn’t want my kids exposed to them. I know the kids can’t help what they hear at school and quite honestly, I can’t stop my own kids from using bad words when I am not in hearing range. But I can, and could, do what I can/could to eliminate the kids from being around those who swear. To whit, I didn’t want Jacob following this fellow student whose posts contained swear words.

So I told Jacob that he needed to unfollow this kid. “But he’s my friend,” Jacob protested, “and he’ll notice that I unfollowed him and wonder why.” “¨Simple,” I said, “Tell him the truth- that your mom is making you do it. That way, it won’t be a personal insult from you. It will be coming from me.”  Jacob kept protesting and I told him that if he didn’t unfollow the kid, I would delete the app from the ipad. Jacob reluctantly unfollowed the kid. A day later, Jacob came home from school and said that his friend had noted Jacob’s act of social media betrayal- that Jacob had unfollowed him on IG. Jacob told him that I had made him do it and why I had made him do it. Jacob said that his friend seemed embarrassed or contrite by this and told Jacob that the swear words were in his posts due to his older sister. She shared an account with him and the postings with the swear words were from her. I guess I felt better that the kid felt contrite- like he knew it was not a good look (to most/ many?) adults to have multiple posts with multiple swear words.

I could tell many more social media stories and I have strong feelings on the subject! But for now, I will end with, I’m glad the Ohio legislature tried to put a few controls on kids' use of social media. Edited to add that the law passed by the Ohio legislature has been overturned 🙄. For the love…

Second, I’m thankful that ten days in to the new year, two pretty big changes that I made to my diet are working out fairly well. I’m not craving the items that I’m abstaining from. Not to sound smug- I know that the cravings could come at any time but I’m thankful that as of now, everything is going good. No sugar cravings though of course eating something sugary always sounds good. But no serious temptations so far. As for giving up drinking pop, that was a definite habit- eg certain times (like first thing in the morning...) I was accustomed to my soda pop. So not having it is a more noticeable loss. But, even so, I’m faring pretty well without it. I know it’s only been ten days for both of them but I’m feeling good about the likelihood of success; I’m not giving either up for the year- about one more month is what I’m hoping for.

Third, I’m grateful for our fireplace. We didn't have one at our old house and I really disliked not having one. I’ve been here eighteen years so I’ve had many years to be thankful for the one we have. And I am thankful every winter! It’s gas and I love flipping a switch to turn it off and on. I literally sit in front of it when I am super cold and need some quick heat! Next week, our area is supposed to be impacted by the polar vortex and temperature are supposed to dip down to the negatives at night.  I see an astronomical gas bill in our future...🫣

Fourth, I’m grateful for compost. Kind of random for January, I know. Oddly, I found myself in the garden on Tuesday, in the rain, no less, working in the garden and needing compost. There it was, dark and redolently loamy. It was also a bit egg- shelly. (Egg shells must take longer to decompose (probably due to the harder nature of the shells than most compostable items)). I remember when I first started composting years ago that I had a nascent fear that I would be the only person collecting refuse to compost and for whom compost failed to materialize. 🤭  I’m glad that my fears turned out to be unfounded!

Fifth, I’m thankful for the kindness of students. Something embarrassing happened to me last Friday in school. I was subbing in a classroom and sitting in the teacher’s chair. I must have been sitting with not enough of my behind on the chair because at one point, I leaned over in the chair to get something out of my purse which was on the ground and the chair fell out from me. Or I fell out of the chair. I landed on my tuchus on the floor, the chair falling to the ground behind me. In the split second where the chair went from being under  my behind to not and landing on the floor, all I could think of was that the kids were going to die laughing. It is kind of funny to see someone  unexpectedly fall? But do you know what? Not a single student laughed. The only ones who had any reaction were the several students who asked if I was ok. 

Then yesterday, I was wearing a sweater that I almost instantly regretted wearing. It was in Abby’s Goodwill pile but I decided to keep it and wear it just for more variety. I was at school in the junior high subbing.  I could not shake the feeling that I looked like a woolly mammoth in the sweater. The color and cut and texture were so odd!! The sweetest student complimented me on the sweater and if I didn’t know that the girl was a really nice girl, I would have suspected that she was complimented me ironically. But she was adamant that the sweater was pretty and soft even when I proffered my woolly mammoth theory to her :).

Extinct no more!!

Resisting temptation in the house...

Relaxing in the house... that is a dog bed, turned my sitting spot for when I sit in front of the fire!