Surprise!

Oh my word! Have you ever been so surprised by something that happened so unexpectedly that it left you sitting there gawking...your mouth hanging wide open...with no ability to form a coherent sentence...

Well...that was the case for me...right now.

Coherent thoughts are returning, my mouth has closed once again, I have dried the tears and I am sitting here writing this at Mugg & Bean...wait fot it...on my new laptop! A gift from Byron and Tammy...so fabulous, so unexpected...I feel like a child that just got the most wonderful gift...ever!

It's MINE!!! Hahaha..So...if you were able to see me now...you would understand why I am sitting here with a silly grin on my face...can't stop it! Hahaha!Whoop!Whoop!

How blessed are we that we were born in this time? The three of us are all working on our laptops in our favourite coffee shop...makes me think about when I first started working.

I started off as a computer programmer at the Chamber of Mines. Our computer room was huge and the one computer took up the entire room. It was like walking into a church...a holy reverance seemed to rest upon everything and everyone who walked in there. You spoke in hushed tones...I have no idea why.

Now, here I sit, in the midst of a constant hubbub of voices, the sound of blenders adding the backdrop to the melodious clinking of crockery and cutlery, music softly playing in the background...

What a difference!

I often think about things like that...how much we have advanced in a relatively short period of time...

Tammy and I have just finished watching a number of YouTube videos about the Victorian times (24 Hours in the Past - Surviving a day in the Victorian Era). The time was the 1840's. Fascinating...you should definitely watch it.

The series was about a group of people who get to live in a Victorian village and to experience what daily life was like in those times for those who were not part of the upper classes. It was tough! Three quarters of the population lived from hand to mouth. They did gut wrenching work in horrible conditions and at the end of the day the pay would be just enough for a place to sleep. No bathrooms, no nice clean toilets, no lovely kitchens to cook in...

I can't tell you how much time we spent wrinkling our noses in disgust at what was normal life for them. It's hard to believe how difficult it was...now, just 180 years later our lives are so advanced...it's incredible.

Can you imagine their confusion if they had to see a snippet of our lives...their future offspring?

The wonder of it is that each generation has lived their lives to better the life of the next. We have benefited from all the hard labour of generations gone by.

To them, I say, "Thank you for the blood, sweat and tears that built a better future for those to follow."

I'm so grateful for you all and I'm so grateful for this time that we live in! How about you?