30 Days of Gratitude

As part of my quest to change my outlook on life and to reprogram my thinking, I decided to participate in the 30 days of gratitude exercise I had seen others do. Someone asked me to collect them all and post them as a blog, so here goes:

Day 1 30 days of gratitude; I am grateful that I have a job I enjoy and have not had any time since I've been in SA where I did not have a contract

Day 2 of 30 days of gratitude; I am grateful for my beautiful, healthy, intelligent and all round wonderful children. I love them so much it makes my heart ache

Day 3 of 30 days of Gratitude: I am grateful for my husband who loves me unconditionally and understands me better than I understand myself

Day 4 of 30 Days of Gratitude; I am grateful for my friends. I have wonderful women (and a few blokes) in my life that keep me entertained, listen to my problems and are always there for me.

Day 5 of 30 days of gratitude: I am grateful for my beautiful home, our stunning views, my pool and our gorgeous garden. I feel very blessed to have a warm place to live when so many have so little

Day 6 of 30 days of Gratitude: I am grateful that I've been lucky to travel the world, to experience such a wide variety of cultures which have enriched my life, to have been all manner of places from sharing a meal with a family on the floor in a long house in the jungle in Brunei to tea at Buckingham Palace with the Queen.

Day 7 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful for the many talented people who create art to entertain us, artists, dancers, singers and any other form. Today I'm taking the family to see 'Burn the Floor' and I am really looking forward to seeing the talented dancers perform

Day 8 of 30 Days of Gratitude: today I am grateful for my sight/vision. Even with my eye disease at least I can function fully other than some issues with driving after dusk. I work with someone who is blind and I cannot imagine the challenges she has or the level of dependence she has to have on others

Day 9 of 30 days of gratitude: I am grateful for my internal strength, that with all of the traumas of my past I did not break. I survived it all and turned it around and created the life I wanted.

Day 10 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I am grateful that the Universe redirected my career. Due to circumstances beyond my control I could not do radiography in the UK and I ended up taking a path that led me to gaining the skills I have now and this enabled me to be a specialist in Data Quality and to consult in a field which has very few other people and makes me very marketable

Day 11 of 30 Days of Gratitude: this may be an odd one, but I'm grateful for social media. FB allows me to watch my friends’ children and grandchildren grow and reconnect with my past. Twitter has enriched my life with new friends, invaluable when you move to a new country. I've met some friends for life on Twitter. I even still have some old MySpace blog friends still in my life!

Day 12 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful that we are finally able to start renovating our house. The stair rails go in today and they start with the guest room and outside patio next week so we'll finally have a proper shaded place to entertain

Lucky number 13 in 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful for Sharon my therapist who is helping me to 'reprogram' my past thinking and to become a wholly integrated person by healing my past

Day 14 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful that my children have found partners that fit in so well with our family. Our family is loud, chaotic and far from normal but Josh and Amber just accept us all and fit in seamlessly. (Now give me some grandbabies to be grateful for!)

Day 15 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful to live in the Mother City. Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen from the mountains, the oceans, the vineyards - it has beauty from every angle.

Day 16 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful for Cordelia who cleans my house and does the laundry so that I can concentrate on work. Without her my weekend would be all cleaning rather than all fun and I would be a very dull girl

Day 17 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful that I still am lucky enough to have my Mom still with me, despite being so far away.

Day 18 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful that today is a public holiday and since I decided to also take tomo off I have 4 days off! So I'm grateful for long weekends :)

Day 19 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful for my animals. Pixie, Panda, Lola and Blue are a huge part of our family and I love them so!

Day 20 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful that I've found a hairdresser I can trust with my hair. Off to see Leandra today for a cut and colour, and think we may make a big change :) Maybe red? Chocolate? We'll see!

Day 21 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful to live in Hout Bay. We love this little village. It has everything you need, and most of the things you want and is close enough to the city for work, but far enough away you feel like you’re on holiday all of the time surrounded by its beaches and mountains.

Day 22 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I am grateful for my health. I have arthritis but it is manageable, it hinders me only with walking and I can cope with that. So many have struggles every day with critical illnesses and I am lucky to be relatively healthy.

Day 23 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful that Trevor has bought himself such a gorgeous house, that he has a job, and that he has such a wonderful girl to share it with him. It's nice to see him happy and settled with someone I know will value him and support him and knows him so well and fits in with our family so perfectly.

‎Day 24 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful that all of my children have been fortunate enough to go to University. That they have all found careers which suit their aptitudes and interests.

Day 25 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful for all of my family back in the US and in the UK. Family by birth, family by marriage, family by spirit… I'm grateful for what you all bring to my life.

Day 26 of 30 Days of Gratitude; I'm grateful for 'coincidence' (which I don't believe in as all things occur in these ways deliberately). The torrential rains occurring while our builders were here revealed a massive leak we never knew we had. So for those little things we think are synchronicity - I thank you universe!

Day 27 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful that my girls live with Norm and I and that we have so much love in our home.

Day 28 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful that after so many days of rain, the sun has finally emerged which enabled the builders to make lots of progress!

Day 29 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful that as we have so many days of pouring rain and cold, we have somewhere warm and dry to live, that we have plenty food to eat, that we have love ones around us, that we have friends we can count on and that we all have each other to laugh at (umm 'with', of course I meant 'with' hehe)

Day 30 of 30 Days of Gratitude: I'm grateful for books. I love to read and I am grateful for the writers who put their heart and soul into their writings. I'm grateful for my book-club and the lovely ladies in it.