May 14- Remembered an anniversary. My friend Jess and her husband got married a few months after I did. Their anniversary is on May 15. On this day I got them an anniversary card, and then missed the mailman, so they got it a bit late. But hey, I remembered!
May 15- Planted a tree. I like companies that give me opportunities to help with my purchases. My mom has been buying this special dog food because our dog Diego has skin problems. The company is called Earthborn Holistic Pet Food, and you can clip the UPC codes from the pet food bags and mail them in to their UPCs for Trees program. A 28 lb bag of dog food equals one tree planted! On this day, I mailed in my code to save a tree. You can check out the program's website here.
May 16- Shared some memories and made new ones. This was the night of The Office finale. This may not seem like a big deal to some people, but for me and my best friend, this television show has played kind of a big part in our lives. My best friend Kelli and I have known each other for 12 years, and I'm sad to say that we don't get to spend as much time together as we used to. Kelli introduced me to The Office (right before season 4 started- I've been a fan ever since) and we have watched many an episode and blooper reel together. On this day we planned a sort of finale party- she picked up Chili's (which is referenced many times in the show) and I got ice cream sundae supplies. We had dinner together and watched a bunch of the DVD extras from the different seasons of the show, then watched the hour-long retrospective and the series finale together. We laughed, cried, and screamed at the TV. It was good to get together and remember all these funny moments together, and we had the best time (even though we're sad to see the show go.)
May 17- Did the right thing. OK, my original act of kindness for this day was to use some of my extra money to buy groceries for my church's food pantry (I was appalled to read in last week's bulletin that only 30% of the food in the pantry is donated by the church- they have to purchase the rest!) Anyway, when I got out of the grocery store, there were two carts parked in front of my car. I had to move one out of the way just to get around to my trunk. As I was loading my groceries into my car, the person in the vehicle next to me left their cart in front of my car, too. As I finished up, an older lady (looking quite able-bodied) parked across from me and one car over looked around, saw all those other carts, and just pushed hers forward to ditch it. The cart corral was only TWO SPACES AWAY FROM US. Two spaces. It actually would have been simpler for her to just put the cart away than to leave it, since the cramped space left her less room to get into her own car. I closed my trunk, put my cart away, and walked very deliberately toward this woman's car, looked her dead in the eye, and grabbed her cart and the one next to it and dragged them over to the cart corral. Then I came back for the other two carts. She watched me the whole time. My back was killing me, it had started to rain, and I really just wanted to go home, but it bothered me that this woman was going to do the wrong thing, even when the right thing was easier and even though she obviously saw the cluttered mess left behind by other people doing the wrong thing. I felt pretty good putting those carts away, especially since I had just been reading a widely publicized article about how selfish, thoughtless, and entitled members of my generation are supposed to be. As it turns out, this lady winded up driving behind me for a little ways, and I kept looking at her in the rearview mirror, thinking "I hope you feel bad, lady." You know, just a little guilty. It still counts as an act of kindness even if it made someone feel a little bad, right? I know that sounds weird.
May 18- Held my tongue. The Bible tells us to be slow to speak and slow to anger. On this day, my coworker and I got carry-out for lunch, and I was pretty sure that the restaurant had forgotten part of my order- really the part I was most looking forward to eating. I was immediately pretty ticked off and wanted to pick up the phone and call to complain. I was actually looking up the number when I decided against it. I decided to give them a break and not say anything, even online later. Which is a good thing, because I found that the thought-to-be missing food was buried under something else. I felt kind of dumb, and glad I hadn't called to complain. So, my act of kindness was being quiet when I really wanted to yell at someone, and I learned a lesson from it, too.
May 19- Served my church. I serve in the nursery every third Sunday. Obviously I missed the first few months of the year because of my surgery. I was supposed to start back in March, but the day I was supposed to serve was the day after my wisdom tooth removal, and my face was all swollen and I ran a little fever so I stayed home. Then the next month I was sick. I FINALLY was ready to go back to the nursery this week...and I had a really bad night on Saturday. I woke up several times in the middle of the night sick to my stomach. I was exhausted and grumpy, but I didn't want to cause any more inconvenience than I already have. So I went to church, and felt like curling up and sleeping during the first service. When I went to the nursery, I didn't last very long in the room I was assigned to (I needed lighter babies) so I moved to the little baby room. There were two adults and two babies. I didn't get to hold a baby. I basically just sat in a rocking chair and almost rocked myself to sleep. It was kind of silly, really, but hey. I was there if they needed me, and I felt good about not cancelling again. Hopefully next month will be a little easier.
May 20- Saved the Sloths. At least, I hope so. Anyone who knows me knows I love animals, and my favorite animals are kind of weird- like sloths. I am a huge fan of sloths. I really hope that some day I am able to visit this sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica, where they take care of orphaned babies, sick sloths, and sloths that were kept as pets, declawed, and then abandoned (without their claws, sloths can't survive in the wild because they can't climb the trees.) I really want to hug a sloth. Anyway, I learned recently that the sloth sanctuary is having kind of a financial crisis, and someone has started an online fundraising campaign to bring in donations for the sloth sanctuary. So on this day, I gave a small donation to help save the sloths. If you'd like to donate, you can click here. You can also learn more about the sanctuary here.
What nice things have you done lately?
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