Because Gratitude Makes You 25% Healthier

At least that’s what my mom told me she read in a study …

Things I’m Thankful For:

• My amazing, wonderful, big-word-using, quick-witted family
• Denali, the lovably quirky mutt who sleeps with her paws in the air
• My amazing, wonderful, GRE-word-using, quick-witted, silly Vermonster
• My ridiculous, athletic, big-word-using, sarcastic, witty friends
• Hey! That’s Not My Flag! and the Handfulls (football)
• CrossFit (Central, Austin, TLSP, your Mom, I don’t care, I just love it)
• Austin Post and Sideline and getting paid to create really cool, fun stuff
• Twitter, because 140-character quips are really all you need
• *And YOU, dear blog readers, because comments from you can really make my day!

If you came here looking for Black Friday deals, don’t worry, I’ve got those too … well, by “I’ve got” I mean I compiled all the other news stories in town and summarized them here. Ultimately I can only tell you guys that my takeaway is this: unless you ENJOY the craziness, crowds, and EXPERIENCE of doing Black Friday, the deals are simply not worth it. You can get similar deals all season long with research and coupon maximization (aka retailmenot.com).

BUT you don’t get the same glory from telling the “I drove to Best Buy, parked three spots away, and was out in ten minutes” story as you do the “I camped out in line three spots from the front door, slept there for nine hours, and got THE LAST BIG SCREEN TV IN THE ENTIRE STORE, which I waited in line for another three hours to purchase. ROCK ON!” story. So there’s that.

*There are obviously many more things for which I am thankful, like lululemon yoga pants that are long enough for my legs, Whole Foods salad bar that contains cooked white-meat chicken, that stupid cat that double-digit-dumps on everything in my room, my new favorite pair of jeans, Britney’s comeback, TiVO, and blackberries the fruit not the phone, but I don’t have time or room to list them here. Perhaps it will become a new sidebar one day …