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As the Day Begins

 


I did not stay up late last night. I managed to sleep until five am and then I got up and did the things I always do. 

Iced coffee. Check.

Comfy chair and fuzzy blanket. Check.

iPad. Check.

And so my day begins: checking the familiar places, searching for local stories. There’s quite a big to-do on Bluesky about Howard County. Howard County, Indiana, it turns out. I now know a bit more about Kokomo than I used to. 

Next stop: the Howard County Library website. My library card allows me access to local newspapers which mean that their website is an early morning destination. This service has allowed me to use my limited discretionary income to donate to Baltimore Beat and Columbia Community Care while still being connected to local journalism.

Here’s what I saw when their webpage opened this morning.



Pages of Gratitude

A curated monthly reading list with children's, teen, and adult books in fiction and nonfiction. Perfect for exploring new titles.

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Further down the page come links to books about the celebration of Diwali…



…and information about this year’s Bauder Book Talk on November 5th at the East Columbia Branch.




Leading off with gratitude struck a chord with me this morning..

The month of November has become a time that we set aside for thoughts and expressions of thankfulness. So it’s no surprise that these words appear on the library website. 

Today, though, I’m feeling especially grateful. 

From the HCLS website:

November is the perfect time to slow down, reflect, and appreciate the people, moments, and experiences that make life meaningful. As we celebrate the season of gratitude, it’s a great opportunity to explore books that inspire thankfulness, kindness, generosity, and connection.

Today feels like a remarkably good day to remember that these things are not merely nice things to say. There are in fact foundational to the kind of world we want to live in. One might say they are downright powerful. 

  • thankfulness
  • kindness
  • generosity
  • connection

They can change hearts, and minds, and lives, and communities.

To be clear, this is not a lukewarm suggestion that we should all just “be nice.”  Instead: have you ever thought about what it means to be fierce in support of thankfulness, kindness, generosity, and connection? To be willing to fight for them?

Not only should we embrace them - - and actually live them - - we also need to resist and thoroughly reject their opposites whenever and wherever we encounter them. Yes, in the other eleven months, too. They’re not (or shouldn’t be) seasonal. And all of these thoughts came to me from that one moment when I opened the HCLS website and saw those words. 





It’s a good day to be grateful.







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  1. Julia A. McCreadyNovember 4, 2026 at 4:25 AM

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