Gratitude Journal #13

Apparently, you can train your brain to be happier by keeping a gratitude journal, so I am giving it a go. My goal is post about 100 things I am grateful for over the course of the year. (This should average out to just a little over 2/week.) However, I am going to try and stay away from the standard family/friends/pets. Please know I absolutely am grateful for my family, friends, and pets. I would not have made it through the past couple of year without each of them. But if I am trying to train myself to be happier, then I want to start recognizing the smaller things in life that I am grateful for.

I am behind on gratitude journal again, and not because I am not grateful but because I just have not sat down to write it. I blame the post-viral cough I still have, a full month after being sick. But really, it is just laziness. I have had the time to write, but I have chosen not to. But, I still got to blog posts up last week, so that is something at least.

So what was I grateful for last week?

Gratitude Entry #27 – Knee brace
I have a bad knee. It is called a luxating patella. Basically, every once in a while, my knee cap thinks that maybe it wants to take a vacation, just a little one, to a slightly different part of my knee, and not do its job of, you know, supporting my weight. It is not incredibly painful, but it does make going up and down stairs, walking, or even just standing a bit of a problem.
I have had a knee brace for years. It is just a cloth sleeve, but when my knee cap thinks it might want to go AWOL, the brace lets me hold it in place. Would it be better if my knee cap liked to stay where it belongs? Of course, but absent that (and my knee cap started being an issue around 20 years ago), the knee brace allows me to be up and about.

Gratitude Entry #28 – Smell of fresh cut grass
Last weekend, I managed the first mow of the season. The yard definitely needed it. And not only did I get my personal zen experience of mowing the lawn, I got the added benefit of smelling fresh cut grass, one of my favorite scents in the world.

This week is harder, not because I have not been feeling grateful but because my memory apparently sucks. I know there have been multiple times this week where I have thought – ooh, this is something I am grateful for this week. And now I cannot remember them. Seriously. I have taken the moments to be grateful, to think about being grateful. I remember the moments, but not the things that inspired the feeling. So on we are to less week specific gratitudes.

Gratitude Entry #29 – eBooks from the library
I read. I do not read as much as I used to, but I still read quite a bit, often on the bus to and from work. That generally makes 30-60 minutes of uninterrupted reading twice per day. And I read pretty fast. If I were buying all the books I read, my budget for that would be ridiculous. Instead, I check out eBooks from my library. I can check them out from home and download them to my phone. When it is time to return them, they simply get taken off my phone. I do not even have to remember to do anything. This means there are no late fees.
Here is the thing. I LOVE libraries. I love wandering the stacks and looking at books I have not seen before. And I have often picked up a new author just by wandering the stacks of the library. But I do not always have the time to get to the library, and I am terrible about getting books back – which means I am preventing someone else from reading the book. So the eBook system works perfectly for me.

Gratitude Entry #30 – Hot tea
I am not a coffee drinker. I drink tea. I drink a lot of rich teas – chai in particular is my favorite, and I drink a lot of versions of chai, or things with similar rich flavors. But every once in a while, I like something lighter. This week, due to the cough and the sore throat I have been drinking a ginger lemon tea and tried for the first time a pear tea. I think the pear tea is a white tea (not certain), but both have been wonderful.