Sitting at home on a snowy Sunday afternoon, it hit me for the second time in recent weeks how much I have to be grateful for. Gratitude is big these days -- I even went to a Gratitude Gathering earlier this year and had a very nice time. At that party, when asked to write on my name tag what I was grateful for, I couldn't come up with much beyond the obvious: I have no major financial worries, no serious marital strife, a very minimally dysfunctional family dynamic. I think what I ended up putting on the tag was "friends" or something about friendship. It seemed pretty obvious at the time, but upon further review, I think that truly is what I'm most grateful for. When all else fails, if you've still got friends, you can get through anything.

I've always had a tendency to be a long-term friend. If you become a close friend of mine, you'd better be in for the long haul. I maintain to this day two friendships that began in the seventh grade. One friend is out of state, but we always communicate on birthdays and Christmas at minimum, and she came here to visit just a couple of years ago.

The other friend is in-state but out of town. We communicate fairly regularly, but I hadn't actually seen her for a while until this past December. I'm not sure if I got across to her at the time how good it was to see her again, so I'll make good on that. I'd like her to know that even if we don't chat or see each other, she is someone I think of nearly every day. There's always something that brings up a memory we shared, or a song we liked, or a joke we had. Nearly every day -- that's pretty amazing, especially when our lives are very different from each other now.

My other close friends, who live here in the neighborhood, are getting close to their 10-year anniversaries. I met them serving on a neighborhood committee. One is twelve and the other fifteen years my senior, but we love sharing our generational differences and similarities.

And my husband has to count as a friend, because that's the way our relationship began. We're up to 20-plus years, counting friendship and marriage, and most people would probably describe the way we are with each other as more like friends than a typical married couple (and I mean that in a good way).

So yeah, friends. I truly value the friends I have -- both old and new -- and the friends I've had and lost one way or the other. Friendships shape us, help us grow, teach us things, and get us through the good and the bad. And for that I am grateful.

If you are using photos in your brochure or marketing materials, there are a few things you can do to make your designer not scream. Whether you are using a professional photographer or taking your own photos, here are some tips.

1. Lighting. Make sure your subject is lit well and that the lighting is even. Be aware of shadows on your subject, whether it's a face or a product. If you're shooting outside, have your subject face into the sun and do their best not to squint. Don't park cars half in and half out of the shade, shoot buildings at the time of day when the sun is full on the side you want to present.

2. Cropping. Don't pre-crop the photo. Leave plenty of space around the subject. This gives your designer the freedom to use the shot either horizontally or vertically, in a circle or oval shaped frame, whatever. If the photo is cropped wide, there is lots of room for creativity.

3. Resolution. This is the big one. Please don't ask your designer to get photos off of your website. Those photos are meant for the web and nothing else. They may look good when you print them out at home, but in a commercial printing setting they will look blurry. The problem is low resolution -- there simply isn't enough information there to re-create that picture in the teeny tiny dots used in printing. You can solve this problem in a couple of ways: A. Hire a professional photographer, or B. If you're taking your own photos, set your camera on the highest resolution setting. This is the one that allows you to fit the FEWEST photos on your memory card, because there is so much more information in each photo. Make sense?

The idea here is to give your designer the most options possible for creativity. If the photos are lit well, your subject will look better and have more detail. If the photos are shot wide, there are design options galore. And if the photos are high-resolution, they can be bigger, more detail can be brought out, color can be better balanced and you can have an all-around better looking ad or brochure.

The concept of scarcity versus abundance has been coming up for me a lot lately.

For those who are unfamiliar, people living in a world of scarcity are focused on what they can't and don't have and what they perceive to be unavailable. For example: I don't have any money and I can't find a job. There's just nothing out there for me.

People living in a world of abundance are focused on what they can and do have, and see that there are many possibilities available. Example: Even though I'm unemployed, so I have a lot of time now. I can use this time to attend free networking events and find a job I really like, or I can do research on my own and maybe change careers into a job I'll love.

This concept came up in two separate conversations with friends.  The first was with someone who is having a hard time in this economy and she's tired of her job. One of the things she said during our conversation was, "Everything I really enjoy doing doesn't make any money." So I asked her what  it was she really enjoyed doing. She listed some things and what immediately sprung to my mind was a copywriter or PR person. And as we continued talking, it turns out she already has much of the background she would need to do this. She's only missing the networking and media connections. That's the easy part. It may take some time, sure, but it's relatively easy.

The second conversation was with someone who is nearing retirement age and recently got laid off. Money is getting tighter and because of her age she saw her prospects for getting hired at another job as pretty slim. Again, I asked her what she really enjoyed doing. One of the things was that she has a passion for antiques and is quite knowledgeable about them. We came up with a job concept of being an antique broker (sort of like an auto broker) where you're basically a personal shopper for someone looking for a certain antique piece.  It turns out she even has some connections she could use to at least research this more if not get it going.

These two friends were so fully living in the world of scarcity that they couldn't see what was right in front of them. I just pointed things out that were already there, and then helped them to see what possibilities (notice I didn't say solutions)  were available. Working in this frame of mind, the obstacles that came up were relatively easily overcome. I stressed possibilities instead of solutions because these ideas may or may not ultimately work out. But it got them thinking about what they HAD, not what they didn't, and what they COULD do instead of couldn't.

One more quick story: Another unemployed friend referred to herself as being "funemployed". This struck me as a perfect example of a terrific attitude to have --  one that would allow you to be open to ANY possibility.

We all have those days when we feel utterly and completely overwhelmed. The phone won't stop ringing, the emails just keep coming, and your to do list for the day keeps growing instead of shrinking. It's on those days that I make use of a very simple tool that I just recently purchased.

I had heard for a long time that I needed to simply take a few minutes and some deep breaths in these periods of feeling overwhelmed, but I hardly ever remembered to put this into practice.

Then I saw in one of my favorite catalogs (Isabella) a very simple, elegant 15-minute hourglass sand timer. Having this on my desk -- it doesn't take up much space at all -- gives me a constant reminder to take some time. Flipping the timer over and sitting and watching as the sand falls from top to bottom, I can feel my stress drain away with the sand. At the end of fifteen minutes, my head is clear, I'm much more relaxed, and I'm ready to tackle the to do list once again.

In the middle of the hubbub, it can feel like we don't have fifteen minutes to spare. But when you go ahead and take it anyway, using it to calm your mind and body instead of feeding the frenzy, the time amounts to nothing over the course of the day and the returns on that fifteen minute investment are very well worth it.