SPREADING KINDNESS - March 20th
The afternoon:
Thanks to my incredibly generous coworkers, the boys and I delivered a trunk full of goods to the local Humane Society - dog food, cat food, kitty litter, leashes, collars, etc. Not to mention, combined they donated $285! The Humane Society was the only place we visited outside of our small town, however it's where we adopted our 9 year old yellow lab mix. They are close to our hearts.
Other random acts:
Random anonymous small donations were made, but one was not quite within my budget so I reached out to an incredible group of ladies who stepped up and EXCEEDED the need.
Left a goodie bag for our mailman who is constantly dodging parked cars and, lately, trees to get to our mailbox.
Left a 50% tip for our lunch waitress.
Delivered "Free Hugs and Kisses" (baggies of Hershey Hugs and Hershey Kisses) to several places including where the boys get their hair cut.
Delivered "Busy Baggies" to the local Urgent Care, our dentist, our family practioner and our eye doctor. These were zip lock bags put together by the kids with small coloring books, note pads, markers/crayons and stickers. Kids get bored waiting and many times waiting rooms don't have anything for them to do. Trust me. I KNOW THIS FIRST HAND. :) For the younger kids, we made a "Free Happy Hug" baggie with a flexible toy to play with.
Taped microwave popcorn to the Redbox kiosks with a Random Act of Kindness note "Enjoy popcorn with your movie".
We Frostied it Forward in Wendys and bought small frostys for the car behind us in the drivethru.
We purchased a Walmart gift card and scoped out the lucky one to stand behind in line. When the cashier gave her her total I handed her the card, told her that we were spreading kindness and insisted she take it to use toward her purchase. She was speechless. It shocked the cashier so much she even thanked us twice for making HER day.
We had a care package delivered to my mom, and dropped by with a frosty and flowers in the afternoon.
At the end of all of our errands, we visited daddy with flowers. It was the first time in 20 years I did not cry. Instead I felt a sense of peace.
We ended the day by writing letters to a teacher that made a difference in our lives. They will be mailed tomorrow.
We could only stay an hour, but Oreo and I will be back for more visits. Better yet, I'm going to go back and play Wii with them! This visit really touched me in a way I wasn't really prepared for. The residents there are precious.
Today was a bit of a whirlwind day. I wasn't really sure what to expect. I was nervous, I was excited, and I was on a mission.
I had decided weeks ago that everything I was planning to do would be geared toward our beautiful, small town. I grew up watching my dad do small acts of kindness of his own here and today, honoring him, I would repeat a few of his similar acts and add some of my own.
The morning: I surprised my little and not-so-little helpers by picking them up from school this morning. They knew about my plan but had no idea they were taking part. The older boys weren't really sure about it at first, but Evan was all in. His happy attitude kick started them to be on board, too. Our first mission.... to deliver donuts. The first dozen went to the group of men who were working with the city and disaster relief picking up debris all around town. They made 2 trips to our yard last night (I think because they felt sorry for us HA!), so today when I saw them on our street again, I walked down and handed the foreman a box of donuts. He was a little shocked, but his smile said it all. Together, the boys and I delivered donuts to our local car mechanic/coach/annoying NCSU fan. ;) He always fits us in with our random car issues! Then to the fire and police departments. The officer who received the donuts looked super skeptical of us. I have a feeling he trashed the donuts as soon as we left. This was my first "uh oh... how is this day going to turn out?" moment. But I expected those, so we kept on.
We had a 10:30 appt at our local nursing home. I contacted the activity director earlier in the week asking if we could bring our nine month old maltese/yorkie Oreo for a pet visit. The boys also wanted to donate their Wii. So we delivered the Wii and proceeded to visit pet-loving residents all through the facility. The first lady was Ruby. She was in the crafts room painting a butterfly. She gave Oreo lots of love. We moved on to visit other residents, one in particular Oscar really got me. His arthritic hands reminded me of my dad and he had a very similar sense of humor with one liners that made us laugh. I found that I wanted to spend more than just 5 minutes with many of the residents. I wish I could've held their hands and listened to their stories, but we were there for Oreo to visit as many people as she could. In all, about 20 residents spent time with Oreo and I made a promise to the activity director that we would be back since she did so well with everyone. As the boys and I walked to the car, I broke down for a moment, but I got it together and we hurried on to our next duty....
Operation Wink