The GRATEFUL thread

I've been noticing alot of depressed and "im bored with SL" threads lately. I know times have been tough for some folks, and holiday season is sometimes a bad one for some folks.

I on the other hand, have decided NOT to let the holidays depress me ever again, and went all out, buying lights and decorations and just having the most fun I could with my 2 teenage sons. We even bought the spray snow and just covered every window in our house.
I guess Im very grateful for each day I wake up and Im still breathing and moving! Our lives are only as good as we make them. So choose happiness. Im so grateful for all the wonderful people Ive met in SL. I get to meet people from all over the world, and I really dont know where else I could do that, short of jumping on a plane and traveling the entire planet.

Anyway, the new year is coming up in just a couple of days, and Id really like to know what some of you would like to see in SL in the coming year, and your real lives too!

What are you grateful for in SL and RL?

What are some of the things that you can look back on in 2008 and say, that really made me happy?

Post pics if you have them, Id love to see some!

I don't know that I'm grateful for anything in particular, I'm just grateful that I have a happy real life and Second Life. They might not always be that way, so I make the most of them.

Eh, I'm bored...which is why I'm browsing the SL forums.

Grateful for: I did that with my family at Thanksgiving. We all have our turn to say what we are grateful for during dinner.

Grateful for still being able to walk and not in a wheelchair.

Grateful I can still see enough to read and write, though I need magnifiers, so I'm grateful for my collection of magnifiers.

I'm grateful for my rl bf who I call my Spiderman.

I'm grateful to have had such as wonderful, loving family and for all the wonderful pets we have or have had.

I also said something special about how grateful I am about having such a special Mom who is one of the greatest women I have ever known.

I think some other stuff was just for my family and my bf who are the one's who truly know as they help take care of me and my Mom on a real life day to day basis and all they sacrifice is not able to be understood unless you are walking a mile in their shoes. I am so grateful for all they do for me and my Mom and what they do for my Mom that I can't.

I also mentioned jobs, careers, other things...

RL: Terribly grateful for the "Out-of-pocket Maximum" in my health insurance. Well, for that matter, that I /have/ health insurance. And a job. And a son who will now grow up straight instead of bent. Scoliosis surgery = $175,000; the day he became taller than me, Priceless :>

Also RL: Grateful, and still stunned, that I have the company of my wonderful wife for these 18+ years.

SL: Grateful for neighbor who bought my (slightly) over-priced half-sim, because he really wanted to keep it clean, which allowed me to buy a nice half-sim elsewhere for less than I sold the old for - a tidy profit, paid for two months of tier (roughly).

SL: My dear friends. All of them. Even the ones I don't really talk to any more. Youse guys are the reason I'm in this world. Thanks for keeping me entertained :>

Lastly, SL: Thanks to all those lovely neko ladies out there who I can only admire from afar (except my darling RL wife, also a neko in SL) - you make it fun to be a tom, and agonizing to be "fixed".

In RL I am grateful to still be gainfully employed when others are starting to have tough times. I am even more grateful that my job has become exactly 5 times less stressful (being now shared among 4 other people) so that I have the emotional energy to pursue art / illustration again.

In RL I am grateful for the handful of friends and loved ones who respect my quirks -- one in particular who is God's masterpiece who still astonishes me that she ever acknowledged my existence let alone became a dear freind.

In SL I am grateful that we are still allowed freedom of expression though we do not always exercise it. And I am grateful that those who try to police it and protect us from ourselves (Linden Lab excluded) are just as impotent as the griefers at the other extreme.

I am also grateful that SL has just the right amount of interesting things going on to keep bringing me back but not to the ongoing detriment of RL.

I am also grateful for these forums and for the Forum Cartel group IM chat that keeps me company and wittily entertained even if I'm not quite in the mood to actually visit with anyone.

I am sure I could think of many more.

RL and SL I am grateful to be alive

RL and SL I am honored by the love my hubby gives to me, he is truly my soul mate

RL I am humbled by the acceptance of my two stepsons

Im gratefull that I could save the scripts source code, I worked on for years, today, before sl died.

Hmm thanks for reminder.
I am really Grateful for
in SL my avatar doesn't have use the outhouse, unless it's recreational potty break time.
My friends. The stuff I thought I lost came back. I can create stuff when I want too.
Last month ten people bought something from me.
in RL I have some money for my basics, working computer that helps me create, learn and explore and talk to people all over the USA and world I would never be exposed too. I am still independant even though I have caregiver who helps me at home. I am grateful for the caregiver I have because I went a lot of really horrible ones in past. I can walk to bathroom and don't need to be on life support machine nor am I in the hospital, hospice or adult care facility.

well, now, i COULD answer that by saying "Yummy Freelunch, of course..." but that would quickly detract from my incessant hermitage in both SL and RL...

So many things

My family, friends and wonderful partner
My beautiful healthy pets, both of them 10 years old
My good health
My lovely home
My interesting but challenging job
My hair.......yes I like my hair, it's finally long again, hey I'm shallow

Fantastic!!!!

/me snickers..Well, hopefully I"ll be around this next year

What a long, strange trip it's been.