This morning I listened to the latest episode of ATP where John, Casey, and Marco talked about what 2015 tech they are thankful for. That’s a neat idea, so I thought I’d do the same.

In no particular order:

1. USB/auxiliary ports in car stereos. Ok, I know this isn’t even remotely recent tech, but my husband installed a new stereo in my 1997 Infiniti and now I can finally listen to my playlists and podcasts easily through my car speakers using a built-in USB port. It was seriously annoying to have to burn CDs or listen to the radio all the time!

2. f.lux. I used to have trouble winding down at night, in part because of all the blue light that comes from my computer and phone screen. f.lux has really helped with that, and now that I’ve side-loaded a similar, open source app onto my phone, I find that my eyes are much happier and my sleep habits are much healthier overall.

3. My Apple Watch. Like Marco, I haven’t really worn a watch since high school, so there’s a sense in which I’m just enjoying wearing a watch again. However, I think my favorite aspect of wearing the Apple Watch so far is that I’ve been able to keep my iPhone on silent for months. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I find the haptic feedback on the watch significantly less jarring than any of the notification tones that iOS offers. Also, I used to miss phone calls all the time, and now I’ve hardly missed one! Finally, I definitely appreciate how the Activity rings make me more conscious of my health in general (even if I ignore them sometimes).

4. Online learning resources/communities. I’m thankful for every person out there who takes the time to answer questions in online forums and/or produce tutorials for various programming concepts. Whether it’s a big company like Treehouse or Lynda.com, or an individual with a kind heart, I really appreciate it. I would have had a much more difficult time getting started with programming if it hadn’t been for Stack Overflow, AppCoda, Ray Wenderlich, and an assortment of small blogs. All of these sites and services are made possible by the Internet, so that’s why I’m counting this as tech!

5. My Keurig 2.0 coffee machine. Yes, I know it’s not even close to fine artisanal coffee, but when I first wake up in the morning I’m in no mood to spend time crafting the perfect cup. Instead, I pop in a Grove Square French vanilla k-cup (only $5.94 for 18 of them) and I’m on my way to enjoying the same kind of syrup-and-sugar-laden beverage you can get at Starbucks. I’ve been even more thankful for this since I became pregnant and decided to limit myself to one caffeinated drink per day, as it’s much less tempting than having a whole pot of coffee sitting around.

6. Live Photos on the iPhone 6S. This is something that I’m sort of pre-thankful for, because while it’s been fun to take photos of my pets, I know the feature will mean a lot more to me when my son is born! Until then, here’s a Live Photo-turned-GIF of Daisy sleeping by the glass door this morning while I watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade (created with Alive). Note the icy rain coming down outside—it’s the reason my husband’s family postponed our get-together until tomorrow.

Anyway, that’s all I can think of for now. To all who are celebrating today: Happy Thanksgiving!