Tuesday - Random Acts of Kindness / Gratitude

Well I am trying to get back into a rhythm again.  I am not sure I can get back to blogging every day but I will try.   My husband asked me what would make me happy.  I said, I wasn't aware that I was unhappy.  I feel that I am generally content.  Sure would I like to have more money and not be in debt, you bet.  Could I stand to lose some weight and get healthier, absolutely!  But that is not my primary focus.  I would have to say for now my family is.  Now when my kids are gone and grown, who knows, my tastes and goals may change.

We are working on changing our world a little at a time.  My children are each picking a project that we will engage in as a family.  Each child picks one month.  Last month we worked on the tornado relief in Joplin.  We have friends and family there so it was an obvious choice that was close to our hearts. Our daughter spearheaded a drive at her school and then took the supplies to Joplin.  This month our son has chosen to help package meals for delivery to terminally ill patients.  Next week we will load up in our van and set out to package meals for three hours.  He picked it on his own.  Next month another son wants to help our local animal shelter out by getting donations from his classroom.  We have to run that by the school administration but I am sure that they will allow it.  Even if he just gets his friends to participate and bring in old towels it will help a few dogs that otherwise would not have any bedding.  We also found a great doggie biscuit recipe that we will make at home.

As I have mentioned before I love the site Pebble Tossers.  They log in and they look for their own project.  We talk about it and then we schedule it.  It creates a ripple, hopefully our children will continue to carry this on long after they move out.

pebbletossers.org

So how are YOU going to create a small ripple today?

Saturday - Family Fun

Today part of my family is in Missouri helping with the Tornado clean up, I am at home and the others are having their visitation time with their other parents.  So todays family fun is basically me sitting by myself.  I am trying to get motivated to do something but it has been such an exhausting week.  I have laundry that has piled up and a hundred things that I need to get done to the house.  But I am thinking I need to take some time off.  We have been just going and going and going non stop since Sunday.  School ended yesterday as well, so it has been really busy here.  So I think I will have a nice long shower and relax a little today.  Maybe take myself out to lunch.  The possibilities are endless.  I hope everyone enjoys their day, and those who are in the midst of cleaning up, I hope that they are able to recover absolutely everything they can.

Tuesday - Random Acts of Kindness / Gratitude

I understand how a small pebble can start a ripple.  I mentioned that I was going to have my children pick a service project for the family to participate in each month.  I sent a copy of the Pebble Tosser newsletter to my older children and one of my daughters ran with it. She approached her school administrators and is now helping organize a collection relief effort for the Tornado victims in our area.  When she went to school we were talking about a completely different project, by the time she got there, she had changed her mind and apparently was very passionate about Tornado Relief. 

 

I was in the car yesterday when I heard an ad for Kaiser Permanente.  Even the insurance companies are trying to get people to do good deeds.  It honestly does make some one feel good to do things for others.

 

Here is a link for Pebble Tossers again.  I hope to involve my children while they are young, so hopefully when they are adults they carry this on!

 

Tuesday - Gratitude

I have missed my menu plan Monday post because I have not done one this week.  So today is gratitude.  I am grateful that things are shaping up and I am starting to feel less stress.  School will be out in a matter of weeks and I will be spending a lot of time working from home so I can supervise the kids.  It can be stressful but we are going to try and make plans.

  I have assigned each child a month that they will be in charge of selecting the family community service project.  We will be starting this in June.  Wish us luck!

It is important to teach our children about giving back, they never know when they might be in the position of being the recipient of some else's kindness.

Wednesday - Whatever Wednesday

Ok today did not start off like I thought it would.  I killed my blender.  Yes an unfortunate household accident that involved a smoothie and an electrical short.  By the time I realized that a small current of electricity was going through my body it was too late, my blender was dead.  Lucky for me I had a handheld blender that came to the rescue.  Even though 2 cups of apple juice made friends with my counter, my children started their day with delicious smoothies.   

And then my day went on.......

I came home early from work to finish working from home......nope, my Internet was down.  (Internet was fine router was killed in the recent storm) After an hour of reconfiguring and restarting the network in our home was back up.  Then we move to my brand new phone.  The wonderful Evo 4g from sprint.  Can I tell you how many cuss words I used in a 30 minute period?  No since it was well into the hundreds I should probably keep that to myself.  I purchased the phone on Friday and now it has a mind of its own and we do NOT agree.  So I am waiting for my fabulous sprint representative to be at work tomorrow at noon to replace this malfunctioning piece of dung for one that actually works. 

My daughter informed me today that her friends' (twins) father passed away on Monday and she would like to go to his funeral tomorrow to support her friends.  Now coming from a 13 year old that is very mature.  We spent our evening shopping for clothing for her to wear tomorrow.  So even though my day started out with a shock and continued with everything electrical that I touched breaking, I should not complain.  There is a wonderful family that lost a wonderful man.  A great provider, a loving husband and an outstanding father.  My petty complaints have no room to be voiced when such a great tragedy has occurred. 

I am sitting here with my daughter looking over my shoulder as I type this (first time for everything) and I must admit that anything that I went through today pales in comparison.  I am thankful for each day I am given and each time I can check in on this blog.  Who knows what each day holds.  So live each day like it were your last. 

Love like you have never loved before.  Be kind to those who need it the most.  Put your own problems in perspective.

(A daisy, a gift from my husband and children last year)

MammaDar

Tuesday - Gratitude, April 12, 2011

In early 2003 I lost a dear friend of mine.  She was a wonderful person and she was 47 years old and died of a heart attack.  She had a husband and two boys.  She was happy.  She worked way too much (that is where we met) but she enjoyed her time with her family and she really enjoyed her work.  Shortly after she died I started to re-evaluate my life.  In doing so I picked up a book called Simple Abundance.  It has an entry for each day.  You can start the book on any particular day and start reading about her journey.  She talks about gratitude, focus, self nurturing and various other topics.  Some of the essays really didn't fit me but it was ok for me, it gave me a starting point.  A few years later, I made my future husband a gratitude journal, so he could write things down that made him happy.  It turned out he really didn't use that, he loved the gift but it just wasn't the format he needed.  I have searched for several different formats.  I have decided that it is up to each person what works for them.  For my young daughter I found a diary for her ipad.  She can write whatever she wants and add pictures.  Sometimes she uses it as a diary, but most of the time she just put thing that makes her happy. 

I just purchased a package of ebooks.  In that collection was a book called Gratitude Journal.  You can print it out and write in there.  It is $5.99 but if you like this format it might be a good one for you.  If you like Ipad or Ipod you can get search for gratitude or you can just get a free journal on ipad or ipod.  You can go buy a calendar at the dollar store or even just use a cheap note pad. 

I do not think it matters what form you use to write down what you are thankful or grateful for, I just think it is important to record it.  We are working on our geneology right now.  My husband's grandmother passed away a while back, but a couple of years before she did he interviewed her and asked her all kinds of questions.  He is very grateful that he has those now.  So wouldn't it be great if later in life your children and grandchildren found the things that YOU were truely grateful for.  What a wonderful gift, for them to know a part of you!

Tuesday - Gratitude

The last two days I have been very frustrated.  We had a really bad storm and it knocked out our internet at work.  I waited for the repairman for five hours and he never showed up.  It burned me up like you wouldn't believe.  I was stuck at work, unable to work because our server was configured to go down with the internet.....UGH, so I couldn't reach my files to do anything.  Well I have a secret weapon.  I have a wonderful brother who, no matter what he is doing, finds a little time to solve my IT problems.  He has set up our network, he has reconfigured everything so we could work in an emergency, and he does it all from two hours away.   I was so frustrated that I can't even put it in to words.  I hate when I make myself that way.  I stress myself out more than I should in some situations.  He was very calm (as was my husband by day two).  We just delt with the cards we were delt and rolled with it.  Well they did, I didn't.  Finally at 2pm today it was fixed.  I felt great relief, but then I felt bad because I stressed myself out so much about it.  I am thankful that those around me are sometimes calm and cool.  Usually that is me, but not the past two days.  Thanks to my brother, everything is now back to normal :)