I realized that I have made a significant shift in the way I do my daily business. It has happened over a period of time, but now that this shift has become the norm, I seem to be doing just fine.
Last night Bill and I talked about how we're all facing a major paradigm shift. Took me a long time back in my days of teaching to figure out just what that was, but I'm figuring it's a fancy word for saying "we've got to change our ways." And, it this case, I do think about a pair of dimes (or even more) and to whose pockets they may have shifted during the past several months.
Now, let's first talk about my daily business shift. It has to do with my morning latte. Faithful readers may recall way back a while ago when I found out Nestle's wasn't going to sell their Coffee Mate mocha latte mix any more.
One very faithful reader, who thinks Quarter Horses are better than Appaloosas (she needs to think of shifting her opinion), generously sent me several containers of Nestle's mocha latte mix, and I survived until the last of those containers ran out.
Then, I had to experiment with some new concoctions to satisfy my morning palate. Over time, I seem to have found the combination, and possibly my tastes have learned to adjust with the process. Now, I buy Hills Bros. double mocha mix and throw in a pack of Nestle's chocolate with miniature marshmallows. I've grown to love it, and the Coffee Mate folks can go fly a kite for all I care.
I've made my morning shift, and I'm not even spending a lot of dimes to do it. Unlike those poor saps addicted to Starbucks who found out this week that the world is not exactly enamored with that crankcase they call coffee. Instead, the folks who make "Eight o'Clock Coffee" got a significant and positive jolt when taste testers declared theirs better than Starbucks.
Goes to prove you just have to get past the packaging and get down to the real grounds to know you're drinking a good cup of coffee. Also, goes to prove you don't have to pay an arm and a leg to get your jolts, and that's an important discovery in this world where we're seeing a whole lot of pairs of dimes shifting before our very eyes and now with our tastebuds.
We've been experiencing the shifts in other ways too. A few publications we know, who've laid off some staff cuz of hard times, have come out with their new products during the past few weeks.
After seeing the change, I can tell you one thing: our trips to the Bonner County Landfill are gonna be fewer and farther between, cuz it's gonna take a whole lot longer for those publications to pile up over on the corner table than it has in the past.
They're coming out with less guts and a whole lot flimsier paper. So, I'm estimating our throwaway stack will take several weeks longer to mount up, and that will be a paradigm shift in itself cuz the dogs won't get nearly as many free doggie biscuits because we won't be taking nearly as many trips to the land fill to deposit our recyclables.
I haven't the heart to tell the dogs that the economy and its fall-out could cause them a paradigm shift in the way they get their treats.
On the positive side, however, we have learned that this lack of reading material is good for physical fitness cuz we don't have to spend nearly as much time sitting and reading the daily and monthly blats. Those minutes add up.
We learned yesterday that Century Publishing in Kootenai County has laid off more staff. I can remember when they flourished. They printed our high school newspaper for a time back in the '90s, and the stuff they put out was always of high quality. As we discussed that topic last night, another question came to mind.
What are we going to get done when there's nobody employed to do it? I want desperately to know about that shift in life as we know it. Seriously, it will be interesting to see where folks go when they have to learn a new trade or a new lifestyle. And, seriously, it can be pretty scary, knowing that one has to rebuild oneself and rethink how to survive in this world.
On the plus side, however, the same traits that lead to success in one discipline don't just turn off with a pink slip. Employers can cut you from the rolls, but they can't whack out your intelligence, your drive and your ability to make the best of bad situations.
So, life as we know it may be an uncertainty these days, but we only need to look at history and see that our predecessors faced challenges just as profound and just as unsettling as we do. And, they somehow managed, just like I have with my morning latte.
That said, I'd better shift this body out of this chair and go do life as I know it which will never change. There will always be a good supply of horse apples, regardless of the economy.
Happy Saturday.
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