Of Spreadsheets, Celebrations & Sweet Memories
Not many people know, but October 17 is National Spreadsheet Day.
The first widely successful computer spreadsheet program, VisiCalc, was released in 1979 - one of my absolute favorite years in music. And what a year it was! Disco, soft rock, unforgettable ballads, and the beginnings of new wave. Who knew that the same year that gave us My Sharona, I Will Survive, and What a Fool Believes would also give us something equally important to my everyday life... spreadsheets!
I truly can't imagine my life without either the music or the spreadsheets. From budgets and data analysis to candle formulas and cost sheets, there's almost nothing I won't put into a spreadsheet. I've even been known to say at my 9-to-5, "Let's make a tracker for our trackers." And yes, I was serious.
Some people find joy on the dance floor. I apparently find it there (despite the fact that I truly cannot dance), behind the wheel belting out my favorite car karaoke bangers (despite the fact that I really should not sing), and in a perfectly organized workbook.
But October is about so much more than spreadsheets.
It's a month full of milestones for my family. Every October, we get thoroughly caked-out celebrating birthdays, toasting another year of marriage, and adding new memories to the collection we've been building over the years.
And while I may love organizing just about everything into neat little rows and columns, the moments that mean the most are the ones that could never quite fit into a spreadsheet. It's the little things that stay with me long after the celebrations are over. The laughter around the table. The comfort of familiar places.
There are scents that seem to belong to these moments. The sweetness of birthday cake baking in the oven, the familiar fragrances of home, and those first hints of autumn that tell us the seasons are changing - even here in Arizona, where fall sometimes takes its sweet time arriving.
A calendar can tell you when something happened. But it can't tell you what that moment felt like.
October will also live in my memory as the month I sold my very first candle - before my online shop even opened! On a spreadsheet, it's a single transaction. But to me, it represents months of experimenting, creating, second-guessing, and dreaming. There is no formula for what that feels like.
After all, not everything worth remembering can be captured in a cell. Some things are meant to be felt, experienced, and carried with us.
And those are the echoes I treasure most.