Gratitude Feb week 1

Today's post is a week of Gratitude in pictures. It is a challenge to remember to take a photo and think about gratitude..I have also added a paint filter to my photos just for fun..I do like creating paintings from my photos..
Being grateful everyday for at least one thing, improves my mood and reminds me that even when I feel down there is always something that has happened that day that brings me joy..

Saturday 1 Feb; Bruce and I walked from Clovelly to Bondi and back. This is a beautiful coastal walk. We got exercise, fresh air, beautiful blue water and clear blue skies. In this photo, lunch was nearby as was respite from the heat and humidity.



lunch is in sight

Sunday 2 Feb: I enjoyed a quiet coffee in the garden. It was peaceful and restorative. Bruce went to the beach, I stayed home, reading the papers and enjoying the birds, the flowers and the quiet.

Morning coffee

Monday 3 Feb: I went for a swim. Not in this pool - it's the one at Bondi. I swam in an indoor pool sheltered from the sun. Still this image captures the "feeling". Moving fluidly through water..

swimmers at Bondi Icebergs pool

Tuesday 4 Feb: Purple lisianthus are some of my favourite flowers, I found some in the local supermarket and they are now in my kitchen. Beautiful. The photo looks particularly beautiful in the watercolour filter. Wish I could paint like this.

Lisianthus

Wednesday 5 Feb
Bruce and I did some much needed pruning of trees in the garden and restrung some of our solar-powered fairy lights. Love the twinkles at night. The craggy bark and hanging plants are lit up in the dying light of the day.

Twinkle lights on the crepe myrtle

Thurs 6 Feb
Time to do some quilting. I am working on a sea blue quilt for my son, Nick. Enjoying the colours and the challenge. I was drawn to Kaffe Fassett's Earthy Mitre squares as a design but have made this a centre panel while I create soft sea scape stripes top and bottom.



Making progress, sea blues squares and stripes

Fri 7 Feb
Nothing creates a sense of summer more to me than luscious mango. When I was a child we would be given a mango to eat as a special treat. The sweet juice would run down our arms as we sank our teeth into the soft flesh. It is still my favourite summer fruit even if I have learned to nibble the flesh from the skin rather than sink my teeth into the softness around the stone.

mango ready for breakfast

Gratitude January

Ever since I read how practising gratitude can improve mood and sense of wellbeing, I have been an inconsistent proponent of the habit.

In 2009, I read a magazine article about a woman who took a photo of the small things that she was grateful for, every day and posted it on Flickr . She had been experiencing depression and she found that posting her daily photo resulted in much improved mood. I started the practice of taking a photo every day. It was fun looking for a moment to capture and photograph. I think my folder had about 30 entries, maybe one month's worth.

Then I read in Sonja Lyubomirsky's wonderful book, The How of Happiness that writing  in a gratitude journal significantly boosted happiness. While it is recommended that you do it every day, Sonja says that once a week can be effective. In the last few years when I have become stressed and negative and unhappy, I would pull out my gratitude journal and write down my thoughts. It has been so important to take my focus off my worries and instead focus on moments of beauty, people, places that I am lucky to have in my life.

So I plan to look for those moments of gratitude and post them in my blog at least once a week. Today I'm doing a catchup.. for January and here are 10 things that I am grateful for

1. the extent of surgery on my arm was much less than had been predicted and
2. my recovery is happening so much more quickly
3. my friends who sent me so much love and support before, during and after my surgery- I floated on a cloud of love
4. my husband who listened to and supported me in my pre-op nervous jitters and my post-op exhaustion
5. a friend who sent the most exquisite bunch of flowers that not only looked divine in pinks and blues but also wafted a heavenly scent when I walked in the room
6. the beautiful sunshine that has greeted me so often in January making it a pleasure to sit on our deck
7. our garden has felt like a peaceful oasis where I can rest and heal
8. getting back into the pool and realising how much I love my swimming
9. breakfast with our son Nick on Australia Day at a cafe on the local marina
10. feeling the return of energy and excitement about what 2014 has in store

What are you grateful for today?

I love flowers