April 16- Cleaned my mom's house. OK, actually I tried to clean my mom's house. My back ended up hurting so I took a break for a while. And mom helped, too. Even when she isn't recovering from surgery, sometimes taking care of the house is overwhelming for her (since my brother has physical problems and needs help, and they have lots of pets, my mom has a lot to deal with.) So I tried to help out.
April 17- Gave a friend a gift while helping others. This was like, a triple-kind act. There is an organization called the Apparent Project that works to help people in Haiti. They have an online store where they sell handmade goods (pretty much all jewelry) that supports the organization and also gives a fair wage to the artists who make the jewelry. They also have a fundraising program for adopting parents. The parents order these beautiful paper-bead bracelets, each with a tag showing a picture of the person who made it, and a little mini-biography is provided. The adopting parents sell the bracelets to family and friends, and after a certain period of time they send the leftovers back to the Apparent Project. The adopting parents get to keep a portion of the profits for their adoption, people in Haiti get an opportunity to earn money, and I get pretty bracelets! Everyone wins! My friend Ashley, who is adopting from Haiti, is doing this fundraiser, and I got some bracelets from her on Tuesday. On this day, I gave one to my friend Jess.
April 18- Donated old magazines. You should never, ever throw away magazines. There is no excuse. You can recycle them, you can give them away, you can sell them sometimes (my local Half Price Books buys them)...I donated them to my library. We have a basket in our foyer where people can drop off their old magazines, and they are free for anyone to take. It's like that "take a penny, leave a penny" thing, but for magazines. Our patrons get pretty excited about it. Anyway, I donated a stack of magazines on this day. If you have old magazines to get rid of, ask your local library if they take them!
April 19- Thanked the Boston Police Department. Thanking my local police department was on my list of ideas for acts of kindness, but the living Boston bombing suspect was caught on this day, and there was a huge outpouring of support and gratitude to the police (even those not in Boston.) So often on the news all we hear about is abuses of power and bad behavior by public service members. It was great to see people applauding and cheering for the police. They worked really hard. I left a note on the official facebook page of the Boston Police Department (and I wasn't the only one- when I left a note there were about 8,000 comments on their post about catching the suspect alone.) It's not too late to send your support! You can also check here for other ways to support the people who have been involved in this ordeal.
April 20- Made packages for my kids. My sponsor kids are getting activity books and sticker books soon! I also sent hand-written letters (which I send about every 4-6 weeks.) My girls got letters written on pretty flower-decorated paper, and between the pictures on the paper and my big handwriting, Tasya's letter ended up being three pages long. Oops! Well, she sent a big letter to me- I had a lot to respond to!
April 21- Went "Idle Free." My city has this campaign to get residents to stop idling their cars. They basically want you to turn your car off if you're going to be stopped for more than 10 seconds. It's an act of kindness for the planet (happy Earth Day!) and also for my fellow Louisvillians. We actually have kind of awful air quality here (it's something about living in the Ohio River Valley- allergies are always really bad and it's not just because of man-made pollution.) Every little bit helps! On this day I went to pick up dinner (Brandon got a belated birthday gift card from my grandparents last week- thanks, Mimi and Pappaw!) While waiting for my carside service, I rolled down my windows, turned off my car, and enjoyed the nice weather!
April 22- Donated my change. This is such an easy act of kindness! I went to my local bookstore on this day and put my change in the box to buy books for disadvantaged kids. I also bought some kids books to send to Operation Paperback, for the children of our troops. So there's two acts of kindness in one!
I was sick this past week so my acts of kindness were kind of wimpy, but I am looking forward to some I have planned for this week! : )
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