Gratitudes

Many months ago I announced that I’d be sharing a list of things I’m grateful for on this blog every week. Well those posts have been rather more sporadic than I planned, but I still love the idea of remembering the good things in life, and what better way to start the week? Things I’m thankful for:

• Listening to rain drumming on the rooftop while tucked up warm in bed.
• Taking my shoes off outside for the first time this spring and enjoying the feeling of warm bricks and cool grass against my bare soles.
• The internet, for making it possible to talk face to face with friends and whanau on the other side of the world.

What are you grateful for today?

A little bit of spring sunshine

A month has passed since my last post, thanks to an urgent deadline at work that kept me too busy to blog. (In fact, for a couple of weeks there my life consisted solely of work and blues dancing. Although it was far from a perfect work-life balance, blues is an excellent way to spend one’s limited free time!)

While I’ve been otherwise occupied, Mother Earth has been hard at work too and the season’s first bright, fragrant flowers are springing up all over the place. With the warmer mornings and longer days, it truly feels like summer is coming. Now I’m just waiting for the sun to stop hiding her radiant face behind grey cloud and misty drizzle.

A sunny pair of daffodils

But perhaps I’m looking in the wrong place? It turns out sunshine comes in many forms, and I was delighted to discover a little piece of blogging sunshine in the guise of an award nomination from Simple Is The New Green! I have to start by saying thank you for the nomination; it’s wonderful to receive recognition from fellow bloggers. For those who haven’t come across Simple Is The New Green before, I recommend you go check it out. The author has a refreshingly grounded take on simple, green living.

And now, here are my answers to the questions posed:

1. What does your ideal day look like?

There are too many enjoyable activities in life to fit into a single “ideal” day, but a damn good day might start with a lazy morning reading in bed, followed by an afternoon amble through the bush or along the shore, and topped off by a night of blues dancing!

2. How do you find instant gratification that doesn’t cost anything?

Snuggling with the resident cat (or any cat really); strumming on a ukulele; being in a park or on a beach. Honestly, this is such a brilliant question — what are some of the simple things that give you pleasure?

I was trying to take a photo, but she was determined to smooch. Human 0 – Cat 1.

3. If you knew a disaster was coming and you have 10 minutes to evacuate your house, what would you take?

I actually have two answers to this question. My immediate response was: my wedding ring and the necklace made by my husband (both of which I would normally be wearing), childhood teddy bear and cat. However, that answer is more appropriate to the question “What would you save if your house was on fire?” i.e. those things that are most precious and irreplaceable.

When I reframed the question in terms of evacuation due to a natural disaster, then I’d add in the survival kit that I keep meaning to assemble (food, water, solar-powered torch, matches, etc), some warm waterproof clothes and sturdy boots, and a cellphone to get in touch with family.

Spreading the sunshine

As the final part of the award, I’d like to nominate the following blogs that I thoroughly enjoy reading:

• Under the Pecan Leaves
• the faerie embassy
• The Non-Plastic Maori
• Real Living
• No Need for Mars
• Katie Writes Stuff
• Life During Wartime Challenge
• Loose and Leafy
• Green Lizard’s Blog
• Along the Grapevine

And here are my questions for these bloggers to answer, if they feel so inclined:

1. What motivated you to start blogging?
2. Have your motivations changed over time, and if so, how and why?
3. What is one book that changed your life? (If you aren’t much of a reader then you could share a movie, life event or even blog that’s had a big impact on you.)
4. What are some of the simple things in life that give you pleasure?

If you aren’t one of my nominees, feel free to answer these questions anyway — I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Gratitudes

This week I am grateful for …

• Being physically active: I’ve only gone to the gym three times since joining, but I’m already starting to feel less stiff at the end of a long day sitting at work.
• Healthy eating: My meals this week have featured quite a few salads. It feels good to eat such light and tasty fare.
• Exercising different parts of my brain at work: I was asked to perform a simple kinematics calculation, something that I haven’t done in years! Thankfully, google came to the rescue.
• Playing ukulele: We learned several jaunty strumming patterns at my ukulele beginners class this week, and it made playing along so much more fun than the basic strums we started with a few weeks ago.
• Summer’s approach: Auckland is having typically fickle spring weather, but I’m making the most of the warm mornings and bursts of sunshine throughout the day.

What are you grateful for?