Today’s list of things to be grateful for or appreciate:

1. Getting a really good night’s sleep. I think I was ready for it last night, and I managed to get up 15 minutes before the final alarm, with no snoozing.
2. More weird dreams. Dancing spiders.
3. My lovely, warm, comfortable bed.
4. I had a really good time at J’s mom’s last night. We had a curry, and chatted about anything and everything - babies, Spain, Paganism, manic depression, fleeing the country, etc.
5. I’m not in work until 1PM.
6. I’ve created myself a couple of jobs to do, to keep busy.
7. I have another long weekend coming up - I’m off Sat, Sun and Mon because it’s a bank holiday. I might do some more work on the blog then.
8. Playing with Wenna this morning. She was excited about going for a walk, which is always funny. Lots of jumping about, and howling, and throwing toys about.
9. Physical healing. It seems that the good feelings I had over the weekend have helped clear up my excema.
10. My readers and commentators. Reading your comments brings a glow to my day.
11. Mom has swapped me some change for the parking meter.
12. Nice dry weather. We’ve had a sufficiency of rain just recently, thank you very much.
13. My reliable, cheap car. 22 years old and still going strong.
14. A lovely hot shower. I love the endorphin rush I get.
15. Tasty breakfast cereals.
16. Hot coffee. I especially love Palenque coffee, from CaféDirect.
17. I think I may have discovered a way to restrict access to one of my blogs by IP address. This blog is, always has been, and always will be, private, and current plugins don’t really address the issue all that well. Being able to limit access to my IP address only will be very useful. See #33 below.
    
18. Also finding a way to hide/remove all feeds from a Wordpress blog.
19. Some sleuthing has turned up a useful plugin that I’d like to add to the blog. It’s called Comment Quicktags, and it’ll enable commentators to use HTML quickly and easily.
20. I have a job interview next Tuesday!
21. A of A travelling Spouse has pointed me at a very interesting personality test today.
22. Being able to prepare my own food to take to work with me.
23. I’ve been paid back by another $3 on Kiva.org. I’m up to $549 now.
24. Safe driving.
25. Work went well. I had a couple of customers that made me laugh.
26. Tasty food to eat on my break.
27. I caught up with a few jobs that needed doing around the front end.
28. More free Revels, and some free bits and bobs.
29. I avoided spending any money all day.
30. Just one more day before a three day weekend.
31. Seeing bright sunshine after rain. Everything seemed much more vibrant and alive.
32. I got another pre-sell today. And another round of applause from my colleagues.
33. I might be able to get some free films for my new camera. H found 4 boxes of 3 today, that are a year out of date. They’ll do for me to practice on, providing I can have them.
34. A tasty evening meal.
35. I’ve had a problem getting the IP based block on my other blog working, because the host I’m with, NearlyFreeSpeech, have an unusual setup. So, instead of an IP block, it’s based on a password, that only I know. I followed the instructions here, and with the help of my hosts FAQ, managed to get it set up in about 2 minutes. And it works flawlessly. Now my private blogs can be private, without fear of anyone stumbling across them.
36. My web host. I signed up with them when I did the transfer (remember when I stopped posting, and then you suddenly got a weeks worth of posts in one day a while back?), and added $20 to my account. Despite buying a new domain name through them, I still have nearly $10 in my account. They are fantastically cheap, and a very good service to boot. There’s not much hand holding, but if you need some technical support, then these guys know exactly what they’re doing.

Things I’ve laughed at today:

1. This lolcat. And this one. This one too. And also this one.
2. This and this from Not Always Right.
3. Kelley.

Things I want to manifest:

1. A quick, simple, pleasant day at work. MANIFESTED.
2. 4x Bach Flowers.

Things I’ve done for others:

1. Served a lot of customers in a pleasant and efficient manner.

Today’s list of things to be grateful for or appreciate:

1. Getting up OK, despite the early hour.
2. I was dreaming again this morning, about Quin. I was on a beach, digging for lugworms this time, when the tide started coming in. In fact, it came in so much, Quin and I were trying to evacuate the town. Then I had to rescue a black kitten with a cerise pink mane from my bedroom. I sometimes wonder about myself…
3. Breakfast cereals.
4. A nice hot shower.
5. I’m seeing J’s mom tonight. I’m really looking forward to it.
6. I get to have a nap before going out again this evening.
7. My utilities are working - water, electric, television, PC and such.
8. I have a job list to do at some point.
9. Having time to sit and pull myself together before going into work. I really really want this.
10. Finding some tea tree essential oil.
11. Dad has fixed the extractor fan in the bathroom, by disconnecting it, which means that there is no longer a terrible noise when turning the light on.
12. Ecotopia.co.uk are offering a 10% discount on all Ecover products until 31st August 2008.
13. Singing along to Alice Peacock.
14. I have £13.11 in my ValuedOpinions account, awaiting authorisation. I’m saving it up to help pay for mom & dad’s birthday presents.
15. I’ve been paid back by another $6 on Kiva.org. I’m up to $547 now.
16. Safe driving.
17. Work went well, nice and quickly.
18. I got some free bits and bobs from work.
19. Remembering to take some money with me this morning.
20. Laughing with Dinky and L, as always.
21. A nice nap after I got in from work. I needed it today.
22. Lovefilm have sent me a huge bunch of DVD’s.
23. Work is over for the day.
24. Some very tasty, tangy raspberries.
25. Having a very good time at J’s mom’s. She gave me a camera. And it was great to catch up and chat about all sorts of random things.

Things I’ve laughed at today:

1. This loldog.

Things I want to manifest:

1. A quick, simple, pleasant day at work. MANIFESTED.

Things I’ve done for others:

1. Covered J²’s break.
2. Served a few customers.
3. Bought J’s mom some flowers.

Today’s list of things to be grateful for or appreciate:

1. Getting a good night’s sleep.
2. Hot coffee to help me wake up.
3. The new mix seems to be working OK. Really must look at that fregair, though.
4. Having time to myself before work.
5. I hung my uniform up yesterday, when I took it off, so it’s still uncreased.
6. A friend has come through with some help. More on this later.
7. I had a YouGov survey, that netted me 75p for a 10 minute rant about the government.
8. Door hinges that don’t need oiling. Bit of an odd one this, but I’m thinking that there are so many things, every day, that just work. Toilets flush. Water comes from a tap/faucet. Kettles boil. Etc. I only tend to notice them when they don’t work. But there are myriad things that do their job every day, and make my life that little bit easier (cumulatively, a lot easier), that I don’t even acknowledge.
9. My air purifier is blasting out a mix of essential oils.
10. Stable healthy moods. Depression is not fun, but it is sometimes useful. It certainly helps me appreciate a smile from a customer, for example.
11. Singing with Wenna last night. She sounds like a Wookie when she gets excited.
12. I have more tasty, healthy food to take to work with me.
13. Listening to Raul Malo (he’s the lead singer with The Mavericks) singing Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground.
14. I have a paying job to go to. We have a guy at work, who is unemployed, working with us. He’s doing a full time job, for very little wages, because he’s claiming Jobseeker’s Benefit. We can’t pay him anything, because that would affect his benefit, so he’s working quite hard, for little reward.
15. I seem to be slowly learning the next trick in the book: being grateful for things that at first glance, don’t appear to be something to be grateful for.
16. A nice hot shower. I love being able to wash myself in hot water.
17. Tasty breakfast cereals.
18. Being able to prepare my own food.
19. I got a ValuedOpinions survey, that netted me 75p for 10 minutes clicking.
20. Safe driving. I successfully avoided an accident.
21. Chatting to and laughing with L and Dinky.
22. Free chocolate. I’m never going to lose weight working at that place.
23. Chatting to my regulars.
24. I served a few cute guys, one of whom pre-ordered a book.
25. My colleagues have been praising the fact that I’ve got 3 pre-orders for books, when the target for the whole area (about 40 stores) is only 24 pre-orders.
26. Tasty food to eat on my break.
27. I got Nat a few OS maps that she can use for her walking.
28. I get to see J’s mom tomorrow. It’s a good job I’ve got some money saved. We’re getting a takeaway, and having a good natter.
29. Jogging trousers. So very comfortable.
30. Tasty home made burgers for tea, with onions and relish.
31. Mom made a very tart smoothie this morning, and it’s rather nice.
32. Helping mom tidy up. It’s been a rather good laugh.
33. Cold banana flavour milkshake.
34. Being ready for bed nice and early. I have to be up at 6AM tomorrow.
35. Having pzizz to help calm me down before bed.
36. Having a little programme I wrote that will play a hypnosis tape and then shut down the PC. I find it very useful to nod off to sleep with, and it saves running the computer overnight.

Things I’ve laughed at today:

1. This loldog. And this one. And this one too.
2. Listening to Wenna waking dad up.
3. This, this, this, this, this, this, this and this from Not Always Right. I had #3 myself once. A woman came in and wanted a book, but she didn’t know what it was called, who it was by, or what it was about. Sounds like a riveting read…
4. This lolcat.
5. I was sat at the till at work today, munching on a free bag of Revels, watching an older guy reading the books about sex, while trying not to make it obvious. I had to keep hiding my head behind the till monitor when he looked round.
6. This lolcat. Me to a T.
7. Mom, while I was helping her tidy up. We found 5 tubes of the same foot cream, which was worth about 20 minutes amusement.

Things I want to manifest:

1. A quick, simple, pleasant day at work. MANIFESTED.

Things I’ve done for others:

1. Served a lot of customers.
2. Shared round some chocolates.
3. Helped mom do some cleaning out.

Today’s list of things to be grateful for or appreciate:

1. Getting a thoroughly good night’s sleep. I slept really well, and woke up nice and early.
2. Weird dreams, that included rodent sheep.
3. Hot coffee.
4. I’m not in work until 1PM.
5. A book I requested from ReadItSwapIt has arrived.
6. Having a clean, tidy bedroom.
7. I have this feeling of mild happiness/contentment, I think caused by yesterday’s hard work.
8. Clean uniform.
9. Some fregair I did last night, that I’m going to go through later on today.
10. Physical healing. Always a bonus. I think it’s great that my body will fix itself without me having to do anything.
11. I have some food to take to work with me. I don’t have to waste money at work buying it.
12. Being inspired to make and save more money. I got this feeling while I was lying half awake this morning. I think it’s related to last night’s fregair, with the concept being that I might as well pick anything and run with it, as at least then I’ll be following some sort of track.
13. A nice hot shower. Mom was running the washing machine at the same time as my shower, which made things interesting, to say the least. From hot to scald and back again in less than 30 seconds.
14. My reliable car. Public transport is OK, but I am so glad I don’t have to rely on it.
15. Mom has put some food up for me to take to work with me.
16. I have enough change for the parking meter.
17. Innocent smoothies.
18. I’ve been paid back by another $6 on Kiva.org. I’m up to $541 now.
19. Safe driving.
20. Work went well. H wasn’t in, and nor is he in tomorrow. Dinky was duty manager today, so I got to have a good laugh.
21. Dinky is going to stick the boot in for the new guy, because he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and isn’t flexible. He’s doing news, and I’m probably biased, but it looked like a jumble sale when I went in the other day. I was trained by M, and news was always perfect. It turns out today that it wasn’t done at all correctly on Saturday, either - Dinky got to work at 8:50 and no newspapers were on the shelf. At that time, the paperwork should be completed. So I might get news eventually anyway.
22. Laughing with L, Dinky and J.
23. I got some replen done at work so I wasn’t bored.
24. I had fairly good customers all day. The bad one’s didn’t affect my day.
25. Half price chocolate. I ate too much of it, but so what. Life is too short.
26. The food I ate on my break was very tasty. I have the same to look forward to tomorrow.
27. I have the rest of the evening to myself, so I’m going to improve the security of the blog, if I can.
28. I’ve taken a couple of steps to make things safer, but there are a few more I’m waiting on.
29. Hot Teeccino.
30. Being able to cook my own tea. I made myself a bacon, egg and mushroom sandwich, and very nice it was too.
31. Watching Spooks Code 9.
32. Avoiding eating an ice cream.
33. Mom has given me a heap of change for the parking meter.
34. I’m seeing J’s mom on Wednesday, which I’m looking forward to. It’s been a while since we met up, and it’ll be good to have a nice long natter about anything and everything.
35. I saved mom some money by buying some half price licorice allsorts.
36. I found £15 this morning that I didn’t know I had.
37. I have lots of food in my locker at work, which I appear to be stockpiling for the coming apocalypse. Seriously, though, it’ll probably come in useful towards the end of the month, when money gets a bit tighter.
38. Complete strangers are helping me out with my blog’s security, which is really good of them.
39. Having quite a profound realisation. See SIT.
40. All my needs have always been met.
41. I think I might have found a way to make another one of my blogs completely private.
42. I am grateful for the rude customer today, because he inspired #39.

Things I’ve laughed at today:

1. This lolcat. And this one. And this one too.
2. This loldog. And this one.
3. This, this, this, this and this from Not Always Right.
4. A blue joke a friend sent me.
5. It’s not very often I assign a dancing vegetable to a lolcat, but I think this one deserves one, because it actually made me laugh out loud.

Things I want to manifest:

1. A quick, simple, pleasant day at work. MANIFESTED.

Things I’ve done for others:

1. Carried some washing upstairs.
2. Gave J² some chocolate.
3. Served a lot of customers.
4. Swapped some £2 coins with mom because she collects them.

Today’s list of things to be grateful for or appreciate:

1. Getting a good night’s sleep.
2. Getting up OK despite the early hour. It’s my own fault for having a nap yesterday afternoon. It always prevents me from getting to sleep early.
3. Lying in bed last night, I created a job list, and found some more things to be grateful for.
4. Eating a lot early on in the day yesterday pretty much prevented me from snacking. I ate too much at one meal, which it took my stomach ages to digest, so I felt full all day.
5. Yesterday, I generally felt good. I am grateful for discovering something that can make me feel good, and for actually feeling good. I am grateful that I can be grateful. Keeping this gratitude blog has really had a positive impact on my life.
6. Being homoiothermic. Now I’m two kinds of homo… I was lying in bed last night, and as the bed was warming up, I realised that if I was cold blooded, I wouldn’t be able to warm the bed up myself. And that would be a disaster. Finally, something new to be grateful for.
7. Hot coffee. I’ve washed out the coffee maker, after giving it a vinegar rinse yesterday.
8. Listening to Son Of A Preacher Man by Dusty Springfield. I heard this yesterday on the radio, and I’ve been humming it ever since. I seem to have a case of Earworm.
9. Taking Nat to the station was quick and easy.
10. Taking mom shopping was quick and easy. We were out of the shop by 11AM. This means i have the rest of the day to myself.
11. We got lots of tasty items from Morrisons. I treated myself to some Innocent smoothies, as they were £1 off.
12. Remembering the correct PIN for my card at the checkout.
13. The tastiest breakfast I’ve had for a long time - some hot pork from a joint we got with the shopping, followed by a milk chocolate peanut cookie (these, with chocolate on), and some blackberry, raspberry and boysenberry smoothie.
14. I’ve been paid back by another $9 on Kiva.org. I’m up to $535 now.
15. Noticing that hard work today pays off tomorrow. If I try hard today to find lots of things to be grateful for, that will carry on over to tomorrow. It’ll be easier tomorrow to find as many things to be grateful for.
16. Getting a great shot of a bumblebee on the buddleia while I was up the garden. As I was taking the shot, a honeybee came up, and I was going to get them both in the same shot, but it flew away. Still, how often do you see two species of bees together like that?
17. Job 1 is done. I’ve updated the BFIT blog for yesterday.
18. Job 2 is done. I’ve updated the desktop wallpaper to a photograph of a Hosta leaf with a raindrop on it.
19. Discovering that I can apply an effect to a selected area in Irfanview. This is going to be so useful.
20. Job 3 is done. I’ve fed and watered the houseplants. I noticed yesterday that one of the aspidistras is going slightly chloritic, so I’ve fed them today with a seaweed based feed.
21. Job 4 is done. I’ve fetched out all the papers, odd socks and bits of fluff from under the bed.
22. Job 5 is done. I’ve updated the plugin list. Though I am now doubting the safety of advertising a list of potential security holes. I think I’m going to password protect the list, and people can ask to see it.
23. Job 6 is sort of done. I can’t find much info online, so I’m going to have to ask a professional.
24. Cherry and cinnamon tea. Pleasant, but I don’t think I’ll buy it again.
25. Job 7 is done. I’ve filled and checked all the cleaning supplies bottles, and we’re good for a good while yet. I’ve also watered down some Radox bath foam. I’m quite heavy handed with it, which is a waste, so I’ve added about 1/4 water to make it go a bit further.
26. Mom is washing my dressing gown for me.
27. Lovely sunny weather.
28. Job 8 is done. All the blogs have had their security locked down, and I’ve checked to make sure that the backups will run properly. Hopefully they will. I’ll know soon, either way.
29. A tasty meal.
30. Jobs 9 and 10 are sorted. I can’t do them yet, which is sort of nice.
31. A nice hot shower.
32. Keeping safe while poking about in phpMyAdmin. Even though I nearly dropped the entire database. That would have been disastrous!
33. A nice drink of a different smoothie.
34. Job 11 is done - I got some photographs off the camera.
    1. Wenna, wearing my orange tshirt. She wore it for a surprisingly long time.
       
       
    2. A rather good shot I got of a bee today.
       
       
    3. A close up of the white buddleia at the top of the garden.
       
    4. A lovely blue flowered Germander I have. The leaves are grey, and complement the blue flowers very nicely.
       
    5. An Ipomoea I bought from the garden centre. It has since died.
       
    6. A plaque we have on the wall outside. It seems to be true.
       
35. I figured out what was wrong with the backups. The file permissions on the directory are too stringent. Problem solved nice and quickly.
36. I’ve been awarded the Brillante Weblog award, by Yummy.
37. I’ve managed to sort out a photograph of myself and Nat, that I’m going to printout for mom.
38. Job 12 is no longer an important issue for me. It would be nice, but I don’t have money to spend on it, and so I’m not going to bother. It’s not even a want, it’s a distraction.
39. Hot Teeccino and a muffin.
40. Watching some of Coast.
41. Finishing series 2 of Eureka.
42. I had a surprise phone call from Rani.
43. Job 13 is done.

Things I’ve laughed at today:

1. This lolcat. It looks like someone has just said “vet’s” to it. And this one.
2. This loldog. It really reminds me of Wenna. And this one.
3. The guy in Morrisons who nearly knocked some apples onto the floor. He joked that he nearly ran out of the door right afterwards.
4. This list sounds like things I mutter under my breath when dealing with customers.
5. This and this from Not Always Right.

Things I want to manifest:

1. Everything off my job list done. All 13 jobs. MANIFESTED.

Things I’ve done for others:

1. Took Nat to the station.
2. Took mom shopping.
3. Ran up the garden in the rain to grab some washing before it got too wet.