Wednesday, December 31, 2003

New Year's Eve Musings

This was most certainly the year that consumer use of internet shopping finally became commonplace. On a busy holiday season 2003 day, Amazon set its all-time one-day record of 2.1 milliion sales transactions. 19 million items are now listed for sale on eBay. Amazon sold 70,000 e-gift certificates just on December 24. Analysts think that holiday 2003 internet sales easily exceeded $12 billion.
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My family's choice for the year's top weekly email newsletter is NASA's Earth Observatory Weekly mailing, that links us to a plethora of fascinating photos taken recently by a NASA satellite. It gives one a whole new perspective of life on planet Earth. You can subscribe to it at http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov.
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Excellent words of wisdom for the new year come from Rick Warren, author of the best-selling "The Purpose-Driven Life" and pastor of an Orange County mega-church:

"New Year's Resolution: Do it now! That's the best time advice I can give you. Three little words: Do it now!

Don't procrastinate. If you had a bank account, and I were to tell you that every morning someone was going to put $86,400 into that bank account-- you could spend it any way you wanted to, but at the end of the day, whatever money you had not spent in that account you lost-- do you think you'd try to spend it? Or do you think you'd let it go to waste?

But here's the thing-- You have 86,400 seconds every day. You've got to draw them out. You've got to take advantage of them. Utilize the present by doing it now. Sometimes I get stuff in the mail that says 'For a limited time only.' We should write that over a lot of possibilities in life, because they are for a limited time only."
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Another sign that Ron and I must be getting older.....we are ready to throw a small party at home this evening, but our closest friends all want to stay home and either not drive or go to bed early. We will probably find a fun local restaurant with good food and music while our 12 year old parties with her friends.
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Our prayer for you is for a blessed New Year!

Send emails to DeborahWhite@UniqueRecipes.com.

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