Happy habits: The daily gratitude & kindness challenge

[Guybrush]

I went straight to sleep yesterday without doing this little exercise, so will catch up 😊

Yesterday's kindness
I was kind yesterday, but mostly in very small and social ways. I am trying to do things like taking care making people feel included. If
However, I guess I didn't find the opportunity to do something big.

Yesterday's gratitudes
1) I loved the hotel breakfast 😊 looking forward to doing it again.

2) We went on a biking trip to see the biking infrastructure they've made here and it was an excellent trip. The stuff that's been built, inspired in part by accommodations for bike cycling in Netherlands, was great and fun to use and during the stops, I found some very nice little wasps and hoverflies in the side of the road.

3) We took a boat to an island here which has a large, beautiful botanical garden and we ate inside a huge greenhouse with palm trees and other exotic plants. The main course, halibut, may have been this year's best fish course. I bought some cheese and honey from their gift store that I'm looking forward to sharing with my family when I get back today.

[Lucem Ferre]

Today's Kindness

I helped cook rice. That's about it.

Today's Gratitude

Weather is much cooler and not scorching hot.

I got a sweet bus pass for free.

Dinner was yummy and we've kept the kitchen clean.

[innerspaceboy]

Act of kindness:

Quarantine will continue for most of the month, so I was as kind to myself as I could manage. I've read countless quotes about loneliness and how it is up to ourselves to determine whether isolation is a heaven or a hell.

Daily Gratefulness:

1) I'm an introvert so I'm trying to appreciate and practice gratitude for the fact that I have a quiet home all to myself. I couldn't imagine having to endure this with another human being throwing in all sorts of unknown variables.

2) I'm taking this opportunity to perform dedicated listening sessions to dusty areas of my music library. I may as well indulge my favorite hobby while I have all this time to myself, and who knows - it might inspire me to write again. (Today I performed a chronological survey of GoGo Penguin's catalog.)

3) I'm reminding myself that in public I am in constant fear of contracting illness. There I am constantly wearing a mask, sanitizing my hands, and social-distancing as much as possible. At least here at home I am safe from the diseased. I'm grateful for my health while I have it. I'm absolutely terrified of getting sick and need to find a job where I can work from home. (I'm frightened of the general public as well, and dread forced conversation.) I'm spending most of my waking hours in silent meditation, and sleep to meditative drones through the night.

I also appreciate being able to interact safely with this community. Thank you.

[Guybrush]

Today's Kindness
I played with my kids today at a playground in a way that might have been kind. I also let my wife sneak off for a good hour long nap 😄

Today's gratitudes
1) I am thankful for my old buddy who wants to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice with me tomorrow, so that'll be great 🙂

2) I am thankful for the delicious boba tea I had today.

3) I am thankful for the funny old movie we saw, The Dark Old House from 1932!

[Guybrush]

Today's Kindness
Some small acts of kindness today. Made some coffee for our neighbours who we met for our kids play date, bought cinema tickets for my friend, flipped big rocks with the kids so we could find various bugs.

Today's gratitudes
1) Our daughter has some beef with another kid in school and her teacher told us parents and we've had a good talk. We all seem to be of a like mind and positive that we can make it work and I'm grateful that everyone involved are of a similar, positive attitude about it.

2) I enjoyed seeing Beetlejuice Beetlejuice with my friend, even if the movie was a little shy of being great.

3) I enjoyed today's workout with another buddy 🙂 It was tough, but felt great.

[Guybrush]

Today's Kindness
Didn't really get to do much kind things today as the kindergarten called and I had to get my boy who was sick and crying. I spent the rest of the day at home with him. However, it is my wife's birthday tomorrow and I did get the kids to draw her some birthday cards.

Today's gratitudes
1) I am grateful that the thing my kids like the most in the entire world is when I play with them ❤️

2) Also got to cuddle lots in the couch with both my kids today.

3) I've finally moved on from Elden Ring 😄 feels like a relief.

[Guybrush]

Today's Kindness
It was my wife's birthday, so I did various nice things.. like giving her a present. I also took our boy to the doctor and the hairdresser (both things he hates).

Today's gratitudes
1) The hairdresser had three parrots and one of them, called Mambo, wanted to sit on my shoulder. Yay! It later locked my boy's lollipop. Friendly pets are great.

2) I am happy to have started watching a haunted house movie with Mia Fattoe that scared me as a kid. Yay!

3) We had lovely sushi today

[Guybrush]

Today's Kindness
Did little things today, like my wife couldn't be bothered getting her favorite pillow from the basement, so I did it for her.

Today's gratitudes
1) I was absolutely smashed at Crossfit today, but I really appreciate going 🙂

2) I had fun with my kids today. I do most days, but today was especially goofy.

3) My wife saw the last half of the Mia Farrow movie The Haunting of Julia, aka. Full Circle. While watching it, she said she loves watching old movies with me 🙂 I love it too ❤️

[Guybrush]

Today's kindness
I invited a colleague who I don't know that well to eat lunch on the roof today. She and another colleague didn't even know it was possible to get up there. She also likes horror and gaming, so we never run out of things to talk about 😊 it was real nice.

Today's gratitudes
1) Gonna tie this in with today's kindness and say today's lunch and getting to know a new colleague better 😊

2) I felt really charming and social today 😅 must be the full moon. But I'm trying to lean into my social side and I feel like I have a knack for it. I invite people to talk or just strike up conversations with strangers and kinda yes myself into it when I used to think no. I really like this change in me and it just feels really powerful somehow.

3) Woop! Saw Poltergeist with my kids, mostly our eldest. She wasn't traumatised! Brilliant. Hope I can get her hooked on the scary stuff like her old man.

[Guybrush]

Today's kindness
I've done various little things. Something my daughter was especially appreciative of was I picked up some new reusable water bottles I'd bought for her, her brother and their mom.

Today's gratitudes
1) I'm grateful for having a wife that comes swimming with me in the evenings still, even though the water has gotten quite cool. We did it today, yesterday and might repeat tomorrow.

2) I've been home today with my boy who's sick and have gotten to cuddle with him, which I love.

3) I'm happy with my own efforts today as a friend, father and husband. When tempted to just rest, I've instead managed to motivate myself to do housework and other things we needed.

[Guybrush]

Was too tired yesterday to do it, so will catch up 🙂

For Saturday 21st of September:

Kindness
The most directly kind thing was probably we got our daughter to buy a pair of woolen socks from a romani street beggar.

Gratitudes
1) My parents babysat our kids so me and my wife got to go and see The Infernal Comedy with John Maljovich 🙂

2) We had a romantic dinner and I ordered those scallops that I love so much ❤️

3) We had a swim earlier in the day with the kids joining us. It was nice and sunny.. so nice!

4) The show wasn't that great, but it did feature wonderful classical music and two incredible, beautiful opera singers (Chen Reiss and Susanne Langbein) there were parts where I just closed my eyes and let the beauty of the music wash over me.

[Guybrush]

Today's Kindness
I gave my wife a little massage while we were out swimming 🙂 maybe that was nice?

Today's gratitudes
1) I love that the house is tidy now 😄 we tidied before my parents got here on Saturday.

2) We went swimming again in the ocean at a location I'd wanted to visit earlier in the summer, but never got to. It was wonderful there; nice and sunny, good water temperature (I'd guess about 16 Cs) and a lovely reef that was easy to reach. Shallows for the kids.. we swam and sunbathed, are snacks and had a great time.

3) I exercised with my buddy 🙂 My favourite thing was doing some squats, 3 sets of 8 reps with 90 kgs. I took it a bit easy because its been a while since I did proper squats and then it was on a Smith machine. I don't want to hurt myself, but those sets felt great!

4) I enjoyed putting my boy to bed 🙂 We conked out together.

[Guybrush]

Today's Kindness
I was kind to my boy, perhaps? I figured he might not want to stay long in kindergarten today, so picked him up early and worked from home. I also submitted to my daughter's request that I play Minecraft with her, but it wasn't a hard sell.

Today's gratitudes
1) I love how goofy and funny my boy is, making dinosaur screams at dinner.. and today he casually said the equivalent of bye fools to the people working at the kindergarten 😅

2) I enjoyed playing Minecraft with my daughter today.

3) I feel like I got increased motivation for exercise these days, which is great.

[Guybrush]

Today's Kindness
Nothing much.. though I did help a colleague with a coding problem she had. I've also been very kind, I think, to the kids in various little ways.

Today's gratitudes
1) I saw Gravity with the kids. Yay! And I recently saw Poltergeist with our eldest. I may have mentioned this before, but I am so happy they're coming to an age where we can watch more movies together.

2) It was really fun picking up our boy from kindergarten. I was in the car and on my way, but met my daughter who was walking home at that time. She got in the car with me. Then I get a phone call from kindergarten that he was very sad and they wondered if I could pick him up. I said I'm almost there! So we rolled down the car windows and shouted at him as we drove past slowly and he immediately cheered up. My daughter entertained him further as I packed his stuff. They're such great kids.

3) I am really enjoying the book I'm reading, Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. It's book two of the Stormlight Archive series. I don't post as much as I used to and part of the reason is I try to use the phone less and mostly for reading 🙂

[Guybrush]

Today's Kindness
I was supportive and accommodating to my daughter who had suddenly invited a small party of kids to our house 😅

Today's gratitudes
1) I got to be a nerd today, programming and sorting stuff out. I had fun working 🙂

2) I just had a lovely bath.

3) I also got a good exercise today and have actually been getting some good exercise volume lately. Planning to go jogging tomorrow, or possibly a squat session.