Three Good Things
The idea here to be optimistic and cheer myself up each day by picking three good things, usually, but not always, vaguely related to what I've done that day.
It's loosely related to the concept of gratitude journalling and thankfulness but I find both of those terms can get a bit toxic, this is just intended to be nicely optimistic and counter my natural tendency to think of the three worst things that have happened recently when anyone asks me how I am.
This is an archived collection of stuff I've been posting on social media for a while. Initially I thought these were best kept ephemeral but then I realised I wanted to keep them because looking back through the entries really does cheer me up and why not lean into a happy feedback loop for a change?
4 October 2026
🫖 Finding an emergency tea bag supply in the back of the cupboard just when I thought the day was going to be an irretrievable loss.
🥛 I remembered to buy milk on the way home so there can be more tea.
🌅 Watching the super pink sunset reflected in every window down the street.
3 October 2026
🌞 It’s been a perfect sunny day.
👑The sheriff came with us on our Critical Mass bike ride. (Here that’s a ceremonial mayor-ish kind of role, not the police.)
📖 I spent ages reading outside by the cathedral, then finished my book in the library.
30 September 2026
😎The slant of afternoon sunlight in the sky after a rain shower.
🍫 The secondhand book I’m reading somehow smells chocolatey and nice. It’s of an age where you brace yourself for the smell of smoke so it’s quite a pleasant surprise!
🧀 Crispy bits of melted cheese.
27 September 2026
🪡 Made 5.5m of bias binding tape which is about four times the amount I need, but better than not enough and I can find other uses for it.
🎽The gadget thingy that folds the tape for you is a very neat design and very useful.
🌧️ I got soaked through riding my bike (mostly a bad thing) but being able to dry off when I got home, put my pyjamas on and declare myself done with the outside world for the day was good.
26 September 2026
🦆Watching the river birds take off and pretty much walk across the water.
🧼Cleaned the kitchen floor.
🏊🏻♀️ I was the only person in the pool for a bit. I did apologise to the lifeguard for making him work.
24 September 2026
🐰 Finding some Peter Rabbit stickers in Aldi.
🎲 Have finally got the offspring hooked on BoardGameArena.
🛝Made some progress towards doing a thing that needs doing. Feels like a mental obstacle course. Posting this mostly to encourage myself to climb the next bit tomorrow.
23 September 2026
🍁A mild and sunny but autumnal kind of an afternoon.
📖Sat reading in the Roman Gardens for a bit, and a Roman came by and started telling me all about latrines very loudly, which rather put me off my book. (It was a walking tour I just happened to get an earful of, but quite funny.)
🚽 Modern toilets are great!
17 September 2026
🚊Boarded the train with seconds to spare. (There’d be another in 15 mins but it’s nice to have a smooth journey.)
🚲Joined a couple of hundred other cyclists for a protest against the Merseyrail ebike ban. A good turnout.
🧺Coming home to a basket of freshly laundered clothes.
14 September 2026
🌊Spent a fab few days with the offspring returning them (more or less) to their uni life.
🏖️It’s still nice enough to work in the garden, I even had to retrieve the parasol from the shed.
🍓 I ate what was probably the last home grown strawberry of the summer and it was the most delicious.
6 September 2026
👩🏻💻Learning by reading other people’s code. (Emphasis on the ‘people’.)
💷 Got a cheap deal on some last minute outdoor theatre tickets yesterday and we had a nice evening out.
🍕I’d worried we’d miss out on interval pizzas because the last minuteness made it too late to pre-order but we were able to get them.
3 September 2026
😻We played back to back games of Calico to the sound of the cat snoring.
📖 Sat reading in the park for a while.
✂️ Got the fabric for a top cut out today.
2 September 2026
👩🏻💻Realised I could generalise the thing I was building to make it more useful.
✂️ Cut out a sewing pattern for a t-shirt.
🫖 Being brought a cup of tea.
