Gratitude journaling together

Well, my guess is that the Guardian wanted to add some maths to make it sound impressive but bungled it. But I also tend to be kinda cynical about this kind of stuff. =)

I mean, it’s The Grauniad after all…

1 Like
  1. Rainbow lorikeets eating from flowers in the tree outside my back door.
  2. Fresh apricots. They may be my favourite stone fruit.
  3. The tree that I was worried was dying and that had new leaves several days ago now has a LOT of leaves!
1 Like
  1. We did not beat the English, but we put up a good fight.
  2. I love being able to exercise without having to go outside and get my hands cold. (I have Raynaud’s disease, or I would love going out in the cold.)
  3. Waking up naturally.
  1. Being able to exercise outside multiple times a day (I have rubbish circulation so I feel your pain @shanaqui!)
  2. Music exams are over at my school! 7 teaching days of term left!
  3. Rediscovering the GTD system so I get less stressed at work.
1 Like
  1. I was lucky enough to see two female scrub turkeys laying eggs in the mound that the male has build behind our back steps.
  2. My Old Year’s Resolution tax return goal has made me start working through my tax records again.
  1. My dad bought me fruity teacakes because Lisa forgot to buy them.
  2. My dad also brought me a necklace that I briefly thought I’d lost but which my sister found in my old bedroom. Whew.
  3. He has also bought me and my wife four advent calendars in total.
  4. He also did not neglect to bring fresh carrot greens for our bunnies.
  5. He even brought more ginger beer.
  6. My mother sent a letter and some white chocolate with him, too.
  1. Board games with friends on the weekend.
  2. Prawns cooked in garlic.
  3. Eating vegetables while I’m working or reading. For most eating, not paying attention to the food isn’t so good but when I have a mass of vegetables to get through, eating while I’m doing something else makes it seem like they disappear without effort. :slight_smile:
1 Like
  1. My New Year Countdown challenges on Habitica always seem to mean I get lots of sweet messages from people (and it brings out a lot of generosity too as people sponsor it).
  2. My first advent chocolate was a Viennese truffle. Nom nom.
  3. It’s now the appropriate season to listen to the only worthwhile Christmas album: Thea Gilmore’s Strange Communion. Sol Invictus, Midwinter Toast and Cold Coming are all amazing.
1 Like
  1. Watching the scrub turkey chase the hose when I drag it across the garden because he thinks it’s a snake. He gets quite aggrieved!
  2. This morning I didn’t want to get up, but I did anyway and didn’t spend any time on my phone first.
  3. TaskRatchet. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before but I’m loving it. Lately I’ve been adding two to four tasks to it for every day and it’s really helping me get important things done.
2 Likes
  1. I really love learning cell biology. Today, how microtubules are like tentpoles but also like railroads. They self-assemble in a long tube which gives cells structure, but can also quickly disassemble. And kinesin and myosin proteins can “walk” along them – that fairly popular animation that people say is happiness on a molecular level is actually a kinesin dragging a protein along a microtubule.
  2. I am perpetually blown away by the fact that we can watch a white blood cell chasing and engulfing a bacterium. Like, that’s not an animation. And this is going to be my field! Or it could be! I get to study this and understand it; how lucky am I?!
  3. My childhood bestie is doing an advent calendar with her art. It’s a penguin!
3 Likes
  1. Yesterday I did a must-do task VERY early in the day instead of at the last minute. This is rare and I liked the feeling of relief.
  2. I have finished building a watering system for some possum-food plants that Jeremy raised from seeds and planted into the garden so we can water them all at once.
  3. A nice chat with my hairdresser.
  1. Getting paid!
  2. Day two and day three of childhood bestie’s advent calendar.
  3. Reading two books I want to race through at the same time! (Sarah Best Durst’s Race the Sands and Sarah Gailey’s When We Were Magic.)
  1. An easy day at work.
  1. I love the sight of the snow settling on the trees outside.
  2. I know how chromosomes move to opposite ends of the cell by the mitotic spindle during cell division! Unsurprisingly, really, it involves microtubules: they’re anchored by the centrosomes, on opposite sides of the cell, and then they attach to the centromere (the bit where the two copies of the chromatid are joined like an X) of the chromatid. Microtubules then act sort of like ropes, pulling the sister chromatids into place, and then proteins help to pull in opposite directions to separate the sister chromatids so you end up with one set at one end of the cell, and one end at the other.
  3. I finished Sarah Gailey’s When We Were Magic last night, pretty much all in one go. Nom nom nom, books.
  1. I do enjoy singing Christmas carols. (“O Come O Come Emmanuel” and “Mary, Did You Know?” are quite fun.)
  2. Wales game today!
  3. Bellowhead reunion concert today! :heart_eyes:
  1. I’ve now seen several times when female scrub turkeys were laying eggs in our turkey’s mound. Some of the females were new to our garden (they were nervous about me being around). So proud of Caesar. :slight_smile: We’re going to have so many little turkey chicks if all goes well!
  2. The neighbours put a bird bath on the top of their high fence and rainbow lorikeets splash around in it.
  3. Jeremy made a salad with bits of sausage in it.
1 Like
  1. Ended up doing a deep dive on all the versions of “O Come O Come Emmanuel” I could find, so now I can sort of sing it in Latin, and I have a version in Hebrew on my playlist too.
  2. Also found a version of the Huron Carol in Wendat, French and English. That’s pretty cool, though I have no chance of singing the Wendat, I think.
  3. Excellent idea for wife’s Christmas presents.
  1. JAXA’s successful Hayabusa2 capsule landing and this photo of triumphant arm-bumps.
  2. The Atom Android app is helping me get back into a better daily mindfulness mediation habit.
  3. Sous vide steak for dinner.
1 Like
  1. Playing around with trying to sing Good King Wenceslas, and making my voice sound different for both King Wenceslas and the page. As a soprano, it’s not going well (from the lowest I can get in my range for King Wenceslas, I can’t go up high enough to do the page)… but I’m having fun.
  2. My wife bought me an AM/PM weekly pillbox to solve my problems with not knowing what meds/supplements to take when. :joy:
  3. There’s going to be a Great British Sewing Bee Christmas special!