So how did I decide to do 30 acts of kindness to celebrate? Well, it all started last summer when my sister challenged my family to do random acts of kindness on our trip to our big family reunion. My family loved it! It changed my life. And after our November to Remember events my life has CHANGED DRASTICALLY. In a great way. I have always been a positive and upbeat person (for the most part) but this past November was a wonderful life changing event in my life. I knew I wanted to give back some how. I feel like I have been given a second chance at life. So I decided to do 30 acts of kindness. The last few months I have thought about different things I wanted to do and about 2 weeks ago I made a list. I had to limit myself a bit because 1. we do not have a lot of money 2. I didn't want them to all be easy like texting a friend or emailing a family member, etc. I wanted to include people in my life who in the past year have impacted it and of course my family! I asked Troy to take the day off from work so he could be apart of it and I was a bit sad when his boss told him no he couldn't have the day off. But it actually turned out exactly how I needed it to turn out. A day to myself to recognize people in my life who are good.
I remember growing up wanting everything on my birthday to be perfect. And really my birthdays have always been wonderful. I expected everybody to say happy birthday to me and make the day a big deal. After I got married and had a few kids birthdays just seemed like another day... Cleaning, laundry, maybe cake, dishes, tears and ending the day kind of sad. I knew I didn't want my 30th birthday to be like that at all! I wanted joy, love and faith to be apart of it.
Originally I wanted to do all 30 acts on one day. I soon realized that would be impossible so I decided to take about 5 days to do it. It worked out perfect because my mother in law came in to town and she was able to help me and make things possible. And I couldn't have done it without the support of my amazing husband and parents who helped watch the kids.
So without further ado... I present to you my 30 acts of kindness... I wish I had remembered to take a lot more pictures but thats a tip for any of you who decide to join me or for me next year!
1. Text/call my brother David (I received a really sweet text back... I needed to hear what he had to say from my big brother)
2. Text/call my sister Amy she actually beat me to texting for me for my birthday! It was the greatest surprise to hear from her.
3. Text/call my brother Rob he texted me on Sunday and I decided to wait to text him back on Monday my actual birthday. I love his example to me. He is SO good about texting me and checking up on me
4. Text/call my brother Ben I actually was able to send him a photo he was looking for from our childhood and it made his day and his response back to me made my day even better!
5. Note to my mother in law Kathy. She has truly been my angel the last 5 months. I have tried for a really long to always remember to leave her a note of gratitude after every time I see her. I have been doing this for some years now and I look forward to writing her because it brings me happiness instead of sadness when we have to say goodbye
6. Note to my mother. This one was hard. Not because she isn't wonderful and amazing and easy to write to it was hard because I can't express to her my gratitude in words. She has been my other angel this year. She is always there for me and I dread the day she moves away...
7. Call an old friend. This one was fun. I have been friends with this person 15 years and I have great memories with her. I haven't talked to her in about 9 years so I was looking forward to catching up. The only problem was she didn't pick up the phone. I had to leave a message. But she knows I care about her and still think about her often
8. Write a missionary. I have been meaning to write this missionary for about 3 months and I finally did it!
9. This next one was a bit hard... I wanted to correct a wrong from the past. It was also with a dear friend of mine. I do not have her current address but have her parents so that is where I sent it.
10. I took treats and notes to my OB/GYN office. My doctor (who wasn't there), the PA (who is my favorite) and the doctor who delivered Eve.
11. I took treats to my Dad and his office. By treats I mean homemade sweet rolls... I forgot a picture so I am borrowing one from the internet
12. I left "inspirational" notes in bathrooms, elevators, etc. I think I left about 6 or 7.
13. I left this note on a newspaper stand with some $
14. I wanted to be very friendly with everybody I came in contact with. When I was in the elevator going up to my doctors office there was a man who was in there with me. He was an older gentleman and I asked him how his day was going... He replied, "Not good" I told him I was really sorry and that I hoped his day would get better. He said he was headed to get medical news that was looking like it wouldn't be very good news. I told him I would keep him in my prayers and that I hoped the outcome would be different. As he got out of the elevator he thanked me for being positive. Bless this old mans heart!
15. Probably the top thing on my list of things to do was donate blood. I really wanted to go to the temple but it is closed for cleaning so my other priority was donating blood. I tried to donate blood when I was 16 but because I had an eating disorder I got very sick trying to donate and about 1/2 through they had to stop. I was bound and determined to do it now 14 years later! I set up the time and drank my weight in water and ate a nice lunch. I signed all the paperwork only to discover my heart rate was a bit too high ( I was so nervous) and my iron was too low. We have been eating spinach smoothies everyday for about a month so I was hoping my levels would be good. I was so disappointed... I got in my van and cried. But I had other things on my list so I got to it. Maybe someday...
16. Speaking of lunch... Oh before I forget I prayed really hard that I would be in the right place at the right time to help out those I could. I turned into a Chili's for lunch hoping to leave a really nice tip for my waitress As soon as I was seated I had to pee like really bad (remember the whole drink a ton of water thing to donate blood?) As I walked by the bathroom I saw this sweet mom with her cute little 2 year old red head waiting to order. I knew I need to pay for their lunch.She looked a bit frazzled but tried to be upbeat as she talked with her son. When I got back to my seat I informed my waitress what I wanted to do. She was so shocked. Her words, "but its your birthday somebody should buy you lunch". Without hesitation I said "its about time I give back" Oh by the way I wore a birthday girl button all day it was great!
The waitress is at their table. You can't really see them but I tried to get a shot. Plus you can see my super cute new shirt my mother in law gave me!
I left her a note about how cute her son was and what a good mom I thought she was. I also left her waitress a VERY nice tip.
17. I left my waitress a VERY nice tip too. She bought me an molten chocolate cake and had everybody come sing to me. I loved it! My waitress Brittany told me that everybody loved my idea for my birthday and they were all going to try to pass it forward by being involved. I am also going to make sure that I send Chili's a nice note about my lovely waitress!
*side note here- As the mom with the cute little red head was walking out of Chili's I overheard her say, "Okay buddy now we can go pick up the car it is finished." I can't tell you how many times I have dropped off my car to get it fixed and had to tote my kids around trying to find a place to go while they work on it.
18. After I found out I couldn't donate blood I decided to give away my bag of food to a homeless person. Every time we go downtown we see beggars on the street so I was positive I would find one pretty quickly. To my surprise I did the downtown loop and did not see one! I decided to drive down central a little farther and I came to stop light. On my right I could see a man playing the saxophone and he had a flute and trumpet there too. I honked my horn and gave him a $5 I had in the van. He looked excited.
19. I searched for a good 30 minutes for a homeless person and finally found one just as I was about to give up. He was searching in a dumpster and found a prized possession (a half full bottle of coke). I had to get in the right hand lane and pull up in this apartment complex thing. I almost hit his bike that had everything he owned on it. I was excited to hand him some granola bars, water, and lets see what else did I put in there???
20. Before I headed back to my town about 30 mins from ABQ I wanted to pay for the person behind me in a drive thru. I was still stuffed from lunch so I decided to head over to Sonic for a drink. I pulled up hoping somebody would be behind me in line but was sadly disappointed. So I decided to wait on the side and just start driving up to the drive thru when somebody came behind me. It was half price drinks so I thought for sure somebody would be coming any time soon... I waited 20 minutes and all of sudden like 5 cars came! I was so excited to pay for the lady behind me... All she got was a drink but I hope it made her smile. Look in my rear view mirror it was the white car. PS dont mind my dirty cracked windshield.
21. I dropped off a couple of bags of clothes to our local thrift store.
22. I bought a balloon and handed it to a little kid who was sad
*side note here... I tried to give the balloon to these 2 girls outside walgreens who looked very sad but their dad refused to let them have it. It was WEIRD!
23. I gave Troy a foot massage. I rarely do that
24. I volunteered in Chandlers classroom for about 1.5 hours. IT WAS A BLAST! Plus Grandma Carter was able to come too
25. I gave thank you notes to Chandlers teachers and a little gift (one is about to go to Disneyland for the first time with her 6 boys and the other one is about to have her first baby)
26. I bought 5 dozen donuts and took them to Hinckleys school to put in the teachers lounge and in his classroom.
27. We met Hinckley for lunch and took him Panda Express his favorite. IT WAS awesome! We also took him out of school early to spend some time with Grandma
28. I wanted to do something really nice to Troys office. So I bought tulips and put them in vases and wrote them each a note. Oh and we brought Troy lunch that day too!
.
29. I took balloons to the other side of his office.
30. I bought over 40 Hershey bars and posted a little note on them for the rest of the Head Start office personnel.
31. WOW! We are already passed 30. This past weekend I went to Time Out For Women. That was the whole reason my mother in law was in town. We had an opportunity to donate food to a local school program that send food home with kids over the weekend. We also put all the food in bags during the lunch hour!
32. I wanted to make sure I loved up on Zane and gave him some special attention
33. I also did this for Eve
34. I wanted to say thank you to everybody to wished me a happy birthday especially on facebook.
35. I left comments on my friends blogs. I sometimes forget to do this!
36. I wanted to let cars go ahead of me or let those out who were trying to turn
37. I watched my neighbors child for about an hour after school
I know I have more but this is all I can think of at the moment.
I few things I really wanted to do but didn't get a chance to was
1. Wash windshields at a school or at a gas station while people pumped their gas
2. Return a whole bunch of carts to the right cart area at a store
3. Take somebody dinner
4. Take somebody dessert
5. Do something nice for the triplets that were just born VERY premature in our ward
6. Give somebody a high five
7. Clean somebodies house or at least a bathroom or something!
8. Visit somebody in the hospital
9. Visit a senior citizen center
10. Win a million dollars and donate it all... well almost all of it LOL
11. Donate my hair to locks of love
So I plan to do this every year. Maybe not on such a big scale but something similar! If you have fun ideas please share them!
No comments:
Post a Comment