When I began to write "Things to be thankful for" I knew some days they would be very little things because nothing in particular had happened. I managed to find something positive every day even when things were bad and that with one exception I managed to find something different every day. At times things were bad too - how do you feel thankful when the world is constantly spinning and you can't lie down to sleep? But I managed it. For which, I guess, I'm thankful! Here's the summary of categories. (Some things came into more than one category, before anyone does the maths!)
- There were 21 things related to my garden and 4 to do with wildlife.
- There were 17 things that were directly related to Covid-19 or lockdown.
- There were 15 things related to people.
- There were 14 things related to food and drink.
- There were 9 things related to weather and 5 which were specifically about rain.
- There were 6 things related to shopping or treats I'd bought.
- There were 5 things related to my health.
- There were 15 things that didn't fit any of the above categories.
- Although I spent several days thinking I mustn't mention bees again, I found I hadn't actually mentioned them once!
The list is quite interesting to me because I think it might relate the amount of time I spend thinking about all the different categories. Undoubtedly my garden is hugely important to me and I spent a lot of time in April and early May working in it. I'm pleased to find that people figure quite highly because people are important to me but sometimes I fear I get distracted by other things going on in my life and don't spend as much time with or on my friends.
Food and drink - well, considering how much time I spend thinking about food and drink it's surprising that I only mentioned them 14 times.
The list also shows that I haven't gone overboard on comfort buying and don't dwell overmuch on my health. I'm not sure about the accuracy of these two. I have actually spent a lot of money during the past three months but much of it has been on equipment for making silver clay jewellery, having decided that's the direction I want to go in at the moment. And as for health, well I do spend quite a lot of days thinking about my post-viral fatigue and whether I need a nap or not as well as the various injuries and aches and pains I have. But I suppose I don't tend to talk about these very much as I think I would soon bore people.
I'm very glad I did this and glad that I maintained every single day for 100 days. It would have been easy to miss the days without anything obvious but my list sometimes made me think carefully about what was important and sometimes it took my focus away from things I needed distracting from.
Lockdown isn't over. The news describes it as "eased". However, I knew I needed to set a finishing post, for one thing because I really was going to be repeating myself sooner or later and for another I wanted to concentrate on other types of post and forms of writing. It's good that I've been prompted to blog, which has been increasingly neglected over the past two years or so.
And finally, coming to the end of writing my 100 things seems to have coincided with my starting a new direction for my creative work. The last post I wrote before lockdown was last December, when I wrote about retiring. I'm quite excited to find something I want to do and am now going to get on with it.
Looking forward to seeing what you make with the silver clay xxx
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