At the start of 2016, inspired by a friend, I started a daily gratitude challenge – posting one thing that I was thankful for each day on Instagram. I enjoyed it so much that when I reached the end of that year, I carried on and have kept going ever since. Finding one little thing to be thankful for each day has now become part of my daily routine and I’ve loved seeing friends joining in along the way too.
Finding little things to be grateful for isn’t always easy, especially when living through scary and uncertain times. I have found though that trying to find something, however small and trivial, to be grateful for has helped me through some of the hardest days of my life.
My eldest daughter Jessica, who died in April 2018, was an inspiration to me throughout her short life. She had so much strength and such a wonderful zest for life. Her godmother described her once as a “joy carrier” and it was the perfect description for her. She was a little ray of sunshine, full of smiles and gave joy to all who knew her. I am, and will always be, grateful to be her mummy. She taught me to enjoy the little moments and to make the most of everyday because tomorrow is never promised. And even though having to live life without Jessica is by far the hardest thing I have ever had to do, I will continue to look for those little things to be thankful for, and keep going with this challenge in honour of my beautiful brave girl.
Here are my grateful moments from the past week:
Day 145 – I am grateful for the first barbecue of the year.
Day 146 – I am grateful that Sophie and Thomas both had fun experimenting to find out what things float and what things sink (and then had lots of fun splashing in the tuff tray afterwards!)
Day 147 – I am grateful for being able to work from the garden.
Day 148 – I am grateful that Sophie and Thomas can enjoy small world play together.
Day 149 – I am grateful that Sophie and Thomas enjoy sitting and playing the piano together even if it isn’t always very tuneful!
Day 150 – I am grateful that my children are happy and have been coping well on the whole with life in our lockdown bubble.
Day 151 – I am grateful for being able to stay connected to my church family. Was lovely to be able to chat this morning at our virtual coffee morning.
Lovely to see the kids playing happily together and lovely for you to be able to catch up with the church too. BBQ weather is here – yeah !
It was lovely to have so much sunshine 🙂
That looks like an awesome barbecue! So much yummy food.
It looks like the kids have had great fun playing on the piano. How cute.
Lovely photos x
Thanks Kim. It was nice to be able to make the most of the sunshine and get the barbecue out 🙂
Sophie and Thomas by the piano look so cute. Glad you enjoyed your first BBQ of the year. I like BBQed food, but dislike the smoke a lot. Our neighbours have been doing BBQs all last week, and I tend to close the windows so as not to smell the smoke/food.
The toy set looks awesome. I would want to play with it all day, if I were a kid.
Ours isn’t too bad for smoke thankfully but it is something I’m mindful of with the neighbours.
The kids certainly do look happy, especially plating the piano
It is lovely to watch them sitting at the piano together 🙂
How lovely to see all of the photos of Sophie and Thomas playing together. They certainly look very happy! Online church coffee mornings sound like a very good idea. I hope you all enjoyed your barbecue.
Thanks Sarah. I love watching them together – they do play so nicely together, just like the girls used to 🙂
OoOoOoOO barbecue! It is very fascinating to know what floats and sinks and even cooler when what you thought sinks floats and vice versa. Small world play looks cool. Who knows, if they spend time with the piano during lockdown, they might actually learn how to play it 🙂 Nice to be connected with church.
Sophie has started doing some piano lessons with me and can play a couple of tunes so it’s nice to be able to encourage that 🙂
The tuff try set up looks so entertaining for kids! Love it. Glad you enjoyed your first BBQ, its definitely the weather for eating outdoors. So pleased your kids are coping well, think we had a bit of a dip in mood but are better again now 🙂
We’ve had a few moments like that too and that’s usually a good signal to get outdoors for a nice walk but on the whole, I’ve been very impressed at how well the kids have coped.
Aww it is lovely to see the kids playing happily together and lovely that you were able to catch up with the church too. The weather has been lovely xxx
It’s been so lovely to be able to catch up with people through technology – I’m so thankful that we have that to make this time a little easier.
My piano playing would not be very tuneful either but enough practise they will be fine in a few years.
Hope you enjoyed the barbecue, and water and children always a hit.
It is lovely to see them taking an interest in the piano and Sophie is starting to learn how to play so perhaps in a few years it will sound very different!
I think a lot of people are grateful about zoom/other online tools. I had a few calls at the start of lockdown, but no more other than for work.
Video conferencing has definitely been very useful throughout this time.
That is one heck of a BBQ! The weather has been great for BBQ’s and eating outside recently, but today… my heating is on whilst I type this comment! It’s June!!!! What is going on?
It looks like you had a great week and I hope this week is just as awesome! Sim x #Project366
We’ve certainly had quite a shift in the weather this week from last week! Hopefully the sunshine will be back soon 🙂
Hope you enjoyed the barbeque. It’s been great to be able to keep in touch online during lockdown.
It was lovely – not such good weather for a barbecue this week though!
Working in the garden is always a winner. My kids always love water play
We haven’t bothered with a BBQ yet this year as we usually make it a big family event 🙁 maybe in a few weeks we will have my parents over for one #project366
Oh I hope you can do that, that sounds lovely.
Yay for BBQs lets hope the good weather returns again soon so that we can have another soon. Looks like they are having a great time. They have all done so well. Although we are starting to feel a little frayed round the edges here. Hopefully it will pass. Its amazing how much is still possible online x
I have days of feeling frayed around the edges too. The novelty of lockdown definitely wore off some time ago!