I have for a long time tried to maintain an attitude of gratitude, that regardless of the situation I faced, I was blessed in many different ways and though it’s not always nice to think, someone else, if not many others across the world, were in a more challenging situation. 

I have recently been very busy with work and it’s been wonderful to go out, meet people, hear their stories, film, take photos, create content and share their messages online. May is looking like it’s going to be relatively travel free so I’ll be most of the time at my desk doing the slightly less fun work that the travel bits require. But this at the time that find it a little unmotivating and hard to feel like things are going anywhere especially when I’m working from a desk in our bedroom in my in-laws house, everything feels constricting and bleak. I do love the freedom that comes from not being the one responsible for things in the house but at the same time and the financial freedom that our living situation has given me to develop my business. But it’s still a challenge of not feel urghhh when I’m working and living from one room or 20 hours a day. 

So in an attempt to stop myself from feeling low and getting caught up in this cycle of in motivation and ‘there doesn’t look like there is much hope’ of a mood, I am going to identify and declare five things that I am grateful for right now. This focus of the good should help to find more and be thankful for the amazing things God has done in my life.

• Work I Love
  • There’s no arguing, denying or changing my mind that my work is awesome, fun, challenging, fulfilling and so many other adjectives that I don’t need to put in here. I love the work I do and am regularly baffled after a day of hanging out with inspiring people filming and recording their stories, getting to know them a little and hearing of the work they do then driving away thinking ‘seriously? I get paid to do this? How?!’ Like I’m shocked and I’m the one doing it. 

• Family
  • I know living in Plymouth to Dorset wasn’t that far but when we lived in Britain’s Ocean City, it was always a bit of a planned trip to come back to Purbeck, see both sides of the family without offending one because we spent more time with the other. However now we live with my in-laws, I love that we get to spend that ‘no-time’ with them, I don’t know what else to call it, but that time when you’re making a drink in the morning, everyone comes home from work, cooking dinner, or just sitting in silence in garden enjoying the sunshine, it’s nice to feel like we don’t have to do anything with them because we are just with them all the time. It’s really nice. I can see the attraction of multigenerational living. We’re also close to my parents now, so a day trip over to Swanage is not unreasonable. I’m actually writing this blog post at my parents as we’ve come over for the weekend. 

• The changing season
  • I generally love each time of year and can find something lovely about the different seasons. But at the moment I am loving that we are in the midst of spring and summer looks like it is that little bit closer. I am very much looking forward to the warmer months when going in the sea isn’t a quick 2 minute dip in but a long hour of swimming and being able to do some more diving, kayaking and paddle boarding. In the meantime I am loving the birdsong, the tree blossoms and flowers that are starting to appear. 

• Nice coffee
  • I love going to a local restaurant (Nine Restaurant and Bar or Coffee Saloon in wareham or Java in Swanage if you’re in the area) and getting a coffee either for takeaway on a walk or to sit in and enjoy. I’m even starting to enjoy just sitting on my own, I don’t need to alway meet up with someone. I’m very aware that I do have a bit of a coffee ‘problem’ and am trying to have a little less but one or two nice ones so the special occasion of going out on a friday or saturday for a nice oat flat white, is a nice little treat for me but also is nice as I’m regularly supporting local independent businesses without going out for lunch or dinner every week. 

• Music
  • This might seem a little silly compared to the other items but I don’t care, they make me happy and that is good for me. I am grateful for music – worship music, classical music, music I can dance or study to. I’ve found a couple of random songs lately that I have been listening on to repeat that have been giving me a lot of energy and life. Here is one playlist of Christian Lo-fi/R&B I’ve been loving to have on in the background whilst working and I think I heard it on TikTok or Instagram but I’ve been loving ‘I Like It Like That’ by Pete Rodriguez as its so jolly and I love dancing to it as I feel like I’m on holiday.

So that is my collection of this weeks things I am grateful for. It’s been fun trying to pull them together as I’ve already started to think of other things I am grateful for, I’ll have to add them to next weeks list. 

What are you grateful for?