A lot of us have smiles on our faces these days, thanks to falling gas prices. We’re hoping they’ll continue to drop, but if that’s not in the cards, we’d all like to see them stay where they are.

We’ve spent the better part of the last couple of decades complaining about our dependence upon foreign oil, which puts us at the mercy of oil-rich countries and adversely impacts our economy.

High oil prices affect nearly every aspect of our lives — how much we pay to heat our homes, what it costs us to get to work, the price we pay for food and other goods and services dependent upon trucking costs, and the high price of travel via plane, train or bus for either business or pleasure.

We haven’t seen a drop in airline fares yet, presumably because fuel is purchased far in advance, so we’ll wait and see if these fares drop in 2015 as has been promised.

For most of us, a big chunk of our household budget goes into gas or home heating oil. While winter is just now upon us according to the calendar, the past couple of months have been chilly, necessitating turning up our thermostats. It will be nice to open a fuel bill and see a price drop after the past few years.

At our house, the bill usually comes a couple of weeks after a delivery, and we were so anxious to find out if our per-gallon cost was lower, we called the company after our recent delivery instead of waiting for the bill to arrive.

It was good news, and we’re already hoping it will cost us less to keep warm this winter than last. It’s a long heating oil season here in Maine, usually beginning in November (even late October!) and continuing well into June.

As for gasoline for autos, we hope a lot of residents are already realizing a budget saving. It will also be a nice feeling to be able to spend more leisure time in our vehicles without having to calculate the cost every time we consider traveling any distance. Our school system should realize savings for bus trips, especially those out of town basketball games this time of year.

Just last week, we found ourselves wondering once again why we couldn’t have the varsity girls and boys play the same night when we’re facing a team from a good distance away rather than have one team at home and the other away the following night. It’s got to cost a lot to send a bus to some of these games, and the same holds true for all of the other schools in the state.

We’re admittedly sadly lacking in expertise on worldly affairs, and we don’t really understand the ins and outs of foreign oil and its costs.

All we know is that we appear to be at the mercy of the oil-producing nations. Based on what we’ve read, it appears that the U.S. is finally producing fuel itself on a large scale — something we’ve been told for years we were capable of doing but had chosen not to do for a variety of reasons, one being objections from environmentalists.

We believe in protecting our environment, too, but surely we can find a sensible balance that will permit us to develop our own oil supplies.

Of course, we’ll still be subject to OPEC’s pricing for imported oil, which of late has remained low, possibly due in part to the increased U.S. production. All we know is this: if we’re finally on the right track toward being able to stand on our own two feet and become less dependent on foreign oil, we’re all for it.