What I Can't Live Without

Back in my wild single day during my teaching years, I had summers off.  And in my summers I worked for a dear friend of mine as a gardener.  One day a week or so, we would declare war on a part of her extensive flower gardens.  Rogue trees were dug out, waist high weeds were pulled out, landscaping was installed, mulch was laid.  You get the picture.

Cindy taught me 95% of what I know about gardening, especially flowers.  You never learn so much about a person as when you are working side by side with them.  And Cindy knows me well.

So well that she gave me this plaque for my "new" home for Christmas.

No where on this plaque does it say "iPhone" or "HDTV" or "new car" or "yearly vacations".  Which are a lot of things that my generation, in particular, believe that they cannot live without.  

Because I'm visiting my mom, I'm exposed to things like news networks.  The big news on Tuesday was the possibility of the solar flares disrupting satellite performance, and in turn all of our satellite-dependent electronic devices.  

Let's think about this for a minute.  Could you live without satellite service a day?  Some people I know would get the shakes and violent head twitches.  Could you live without it for a week?  We may soon find out.

What are the things we think we can't live without? 

(For me, I would add to the plaque above "and a goat", because I like meat and milk.)

What's yours?