I appreciate what I have.

Expressing gratitude for other people is a great way to build ties and bring a little more intensity of feeling to your day. But this morning I've seen around me a ton wonderful things that I have that make my life easier or more fun.

• We're growing corn and tomatoes, and there's just something cool about seeing these things thrive and emerge into something fantastic with very little prodding. (Well, in my case, "thrive" isn't the right word, but they're cool anyway.) I just noticed that my tallest corn stalk is taller than I am. Yessss!

• We are so lucky to have air conditioning, as well as all the other goodies in our house: running water, a stove, a microwave, comfortable furniture, and on and on. There are so many things that add up to make life much more pleasant.

• Computers are incredible machines. I work on them every day, but I still appreciate how much they can do: I remember my first "Aha!" moment when I made a picture by printing out a bunch of text in the shape of a tree; I love how you can make ideas come to life with programming. But even without that education, there is so much more that we can do nowadays on these things, and it can be a lot of fun.

It's good to be alive. There has been a lot of effort put in by other people that brings us tangible benefits today, no matter where we live. Realizing that makes some genuine appreciation to life.