Grateful for the Little Things

This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” – a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “What are 5 things you are grateful for today ?”.

While it would be tremendously easy to list off five obvious things that most people are grateful for – health, wealth, family, friendship, and so on – I’m going to try and take notice of the final word of the today’s writing prompt – today. What are the five things I’m grateful for today.

First, I’m grateful that our internet connection – which failed on Friday evening – is working once more. We just had fibre fitted at home, and while we were all giddy with the possibilities of it on Friday, our excitement came to an abrupt end on Friday evening when the world connected to our house went very dark indeed. Following an engineer visit this morning, we are back online.

Today I’m also grateful for a quieter workload than usual. Although I know the months ahead may be hectic, at the moment I am afforded a chance to research, test, learn, and get at least a little ahead of the game. Quite often in my line of work (I’m a software developer) the sand shifts so fast beneath your feet that you never quite manage to get your footing.

The third thing I’m grateful for today is our continuing (and somewhat miraculous) avoidance of COVID in our household. We are all testing on a regular basis, and being mindful of risk. We’re trying not to go overboard – and while we are almost resigned to catching the virus at some point, we’re just grateful that we have avoided it so far. We are all vaccinated and/or boosted, so fingers crossed.

I’m grateful for the sound of our washing machine rumbling away in the background while writing this. I feel sorry for it sometimes – we work the poor thing to destruction. This morning it’s attempting to get a load of mud covered rugby kit clean.

The final thing I’m grateful for today is the loaf of bread that got delivered with the milk this morning – meaning I won’t have to go out to buy any in order to make a sandwich for lunch.

I know the things I’m grateful for sound trivial, but I’m kind of a believer in Gandalf’s observation that the world is driven by ordinary folk performing small acts of kindness. They add up. The little things make the world turn a little better.