It’s Thanksgiving, the day we gather with family and friends to eat too much turkey, and toast the things we’re most thankful for with too much wine. This year I’m most thankful for my external hard drive.

Wait! What did she just say? She’s thankful for her external hard drive? Yes, you heard right.

A week and a half ago, my much loved Toshiba laptop, after 10+ years of devoted service, crashed. We knew it was coming. There’d been talk of replacing it, but, of course, we put it off. Now I go back and forth between working on my husband’s desk top for the printer connection, and my daughter’s old laptop where I have an email connection. Meanwhile, the search is on for the best option for my new laptop in the Black Friday tech sales. Another thing to be thankful for, Black Friday! Never thought I’d ever say that.

Here’s where my one great saving grace comes into play. My external hard drive. I had backed up my files and pics before shutting down for a trip a couple weeks before, so all I lost were a couple reports I had emailed to others, allowing me to retrieve them.

This could have been a catastrophe. Instead, it’s merely an inconvenience. I’m thankful that I learned after my last hard drive crash that I need to have something larger than a memory stick. And, I need to do more frequent back-ups.

Computers are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they make our work lives more productive. On the other, going paperless is a daily risk of losing everything. Even back-up systems can fail. (I keep copies of my writing on the external hard drive, a memory stick, AND hard copies!)

Of course, I’m also thankful for friends and family. I’m thankful for good health, a roof over my head, and food in my cupboard. But, right now, the writer in me is very thankful for her external hard drive.

Anyone familiar with Game Of Thrones knows this warning. I read several of the books, but have not seen the HBO series. It’s a warning of bleak, dark, dangerous times ahead. That pretty much sums up what I think of a Midwest winter.

When I was a child, I wasn’t fond of the cold but it didn’t matter as much. If it was a weekend, or a snow day, we’d bundle up and go sledding without much thought. There were snowmen, snowballs, and snow angels to consider. But now…well…all I know now is it’s going to be cold, and if I fall on the ice I’m liable to break a hip.

This is a list on how I know winter is coming.

• Temperature’s dropping
• Leaves are falling
• Golf course has closed
• Ski resort is making snow
• Soups and stews are becoming the dinner of choice
• Hunting season is upon us
• Rutting deer make night driving scary
• Next week is our annual lefse making day
• Today is Halloween, yet Christmas has been making an appearance for weeks
• Hallmark and Lifetime are playing their Countdown to Christmas movies
• Facebook posts are reminding us we need to be thinking Christmas shopping/decorating
• I’m beginning to panic about Christmas!!
• I’m beginning to dream more and more about Florida

Yes, winter is coming and there’s nothing we can do to stop it, so I’m going to have to find a way to make the best of it. It is a good time to tackle the to-be-read books stacked in my bedroom.

Here’s an exciting thought about something great to look forward to this winter. “Mary Bishop” is in the final stages of publication preparations. I returned my revisions to my editor after her first round of notes and she is now reading. (Word is, she’s pretty happy with what I sent.) And I’ve begun talking to a photographer and graphic artist about my cover. My plan is to have it ready for publication late January or early February 2020. Stay tuned!