The Best of Intentions

I always have good intentions to keep up with my blog...and then I don't. There's no reason other than laziness. November is coming though, so I'd better get into practice so that I remember to write each day!

I have good intentions to do a lot of things, but I don't get most of them accomplished. I'm not sure why. It's something that's been bothering me a lot lately. I have this habit of starting things and never completing them. I get bored. I lose interest. I get confused. I realize I don't have enough talent for something, or that it seemed better as just a thought. Most of all I seem to get overwhelmed and just shut down.

This is a habit that has followed me most of my teenage and adult life. Little things and big things alike.

I always want to make projects, but it takes me SO long, because I need them to look a certain way. I am a horrible crafter. I see things and I think, "Wow! That looks so easy to make!"...and then I try it and generally everything comes out looking like a 3 year old made it.

I have many unfinished scrapbooks in the basement and an unfinished one I've worked on and off on for over year online. What might take someone else 15 minutes to complete a layout online can take me 45 minutes because I need it to look JUST right. Then I get frustrated when it's not working and I give up.

Dieting. Don't even get me started there. If you looked up a picture of a yoyo dieter, you would find a picture of me. I get on a roll. It's fun. Ahhh. Healthier food is awesome. Except...I'm picky and I don't like a lot of healthy foods. I wish I did, but I just don't. So, I get sick of eating the same few things over. I get sick of not losing anything. Old habits creep back in and then next thing I know, I'm eating everything in site.

I am 33 and I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. Sometimes I think I've got an idea, but as soon as I start to research what it would take to do it, I freak out. I'll think, "Oh. Maybe I'll go to a community college." and then I remember how much I didn't enjoy sitting in classes. I remember that I'll have to take courses that I probably won't do well at...I'm looking at you MATH. Calculators exist for a reason. Just sayin'. I get overwhelmed with the thought of homework and projects.
Then I have to reign myself back in and remind myself that God will show me and reveal His plan when its time.

I want to blog more. I get ideas rolling in my mind and then I lose them. Or I get them jumbled up with other thoughts. By the time I sit down to write them I end up staring at the screen and drawing a blank. I know what you're thinking. I should write stuff down in a notebook for later. Yep. That would be the smart thing to do...but I'm lazy and tell myself I'll do it later. My brain just rolls its eyes at me because it knows I'm lying.

I think of activities I want to do with the boys. I write down and pin ideas on Pinterest. When it comes time to executing those ideas, most fall to the wayside. Partly because I just don't want to do it, and usually because I can see it becoming a disaster. It seems that when I actually plan something out and it doesn't work out the way I think it should I get discouraged.

I LOVE being an encouragement to others, by doing acts of kindness toward them. But, sometimes I do so much thinking and overthinking, that I don't get around to doing what I wanted to do, simply because my brain is overloaded and shuts down.

Anyone else experience this? No? Just me? I figured. :)

ps... I almost quit writing 3 times because my brain got tired...but hey! I finished!

Always Be Kind

Last night I shared some of my experiences of being shown kindness and tonight I'll try to share a few more. Along with that, I'd like to share some ways that I've tried to spread kindness. 

• When I got into my first car accident, the lady who witnessed it called 911 and came to see if myself and the other driver were okay. She realized the man was angry and came to be and stayed by my side until the police arrived. She even let me use her phone to call my mom when my phone was almost dead.
• I was shown so much kindness when I was hospitalized with pregnancy complications when I was pregnant with James. My nurses were all incredible. I had one who talked me through everything when she knew I was nervous. I had one who was gracious when I spilled my ENTIRE tray of food on the floor. I felt awful and kept apologizing. I wanted to help, but I wasn't allowed. Ha! She never seemed put off, and if she was she didn't show it. Instead she chatted with me and got everything taken care of.
• When God called me to go to Ukraine on a mission trip, I wasn't sure how I'd raise enough financially. Through the kindness of my church family and friends, I raised the funds I needed. One couple wrote me a $500 check. It blew my mind, and I am still forever grateful to them and to the others who helped me go.
• At my last job in Iowa, I had a wonderful boss. I had so much respect for her. Her office was right next to the baby room, and she would come help during the crazy times. She could sense when someone needed help. She always knew the days I was struggling. One time she went on break and came back with ice cream sundaes for us. Another day after hours of crying babies, she came in and told me, "I know you don't have another break today, but take 15 minutes and just go enjoy some quiet." That's all I needed to clear my mind and regroup.

I'm trying to teach the boys to be kind, and so sometimes we do small acts of kindness for others. Other times I've just felt lead to do something on a whim. This isn't to brag, but to show others the little things that you do in life can make a big difference to someone's day or even life.

Things that we've done:

• baked and delivered treats to neighbors
• paid for the car behind me at McDonalds
• sending someone a box of "sunshine" (Fun yellow items: ie: yellow candle, lemon drops, peanut M&Ms. etc)
• sending notes and colored pictures to someone. You never know how a handwritten note of sincerity can lift someone's spirit. 
• helping someone without being asked.
• donated food to the local food bank.
• leave notes of encouragement in random places---Okay this one makes me smile. I posted one on the bathroom mirror at church once and it stayed there for weeks. Hope it really brightened people's days.

There are so many more, but even something as simple as a smile and a wave is an act of kindness. I try to live in the mindset of , "Do unto others and you would have others do unto you." Show kindness. Receive kindness. 

I can already see the kindness my boys can show others. The time that stands out the most to me, was just this summer. We went to the splash pad in Iowa and he made friends with a little girl. She fell down, and he ran right over to her to help her back up and see if she was okay. That melted my heart. 

That showed me more than anything that our kids learn kindness by watching us put it into action.

What a Little Kindness Can Do.

Sometimes with all the bad in the world it's easy to lose focus on the good. Sometimes you just feel stuck in a rut.

Lately I've enjoyed the new fad of rock hunting. It's really about spreading kindness and happiness to others. People paint and hide rocks for people to find. Some people are really hardcore and post clues and people snatch them up fast, but it's fun to see people's creations on the Facebook page. We've found some here and there. I think the best part is that it's a free activity that even small kids can participate in.

The kindness rocks got me thinking about the ways I've been shown kindness, which then became my inspiration for this post and more to (hopefully) come.

These small acts of kindness are just some that stuck out in my mind. I plan to write another post on bigger acts of kindness that I've been shown as well.

• A few years ago I was picking up some groceries at Aldi. The cashier rang everything up and my total was just under $30. I went to pull out my debit card which is always in my wallet and it was gone! I had stuck it in another pocket of my purse, and then switched purses! I had no cash. I had my checkbook, but they don't accept checks. The cashier knew me as a regular customer and called the manager to see if I could write a check this one time. A lady behind me actually had her card out and was offering to pay for my stuff! About this time the manager approved my check, so I of course declined, but that fact that this lady was willing to spend $30 on a strangers groceries just blew me away.
• The last time I took Daniel to Scheels, he wanted to ride the ferris wheel. It's only $1 per person and I had the money, but the register wasn't working right, and the employee handed me 2 tokens, wouldn't take my $2 and told us to enjoy the ride. <3 li="">
• When I worked at the Y and Daniel was only 2 years old a sweet older gentleman who didn't know us reached into his wallet and pulled out a couple of dollars. He told me to go treat ourselves to a little ice cream.
• Another Y story. A big snowfall started as we got to the Y. I worked my normal 2 hours and 15 min. and by the time I got Daniel all bundled and out to the parking lot the car was buried in snow. I started the car and started to get Daniel buckled in before beginning to brush off the snow and scrape of the layer of ice underneath. Then I sensed someones presence. A dad of one of the kiddos I watched in the nursery was cleaning my car off for me. What could have taken me 10 minutes took far less just because he felt like helping another human.
• I got a lot of little gifts from my daycare families over the years. Baked goods, bath and body stuff etc. My favorites were always just a heartfelt card. The thing that stood out the most to me over the years was the week of Mother's Day. We would always have the babies "make" gifts for their mommys. I wasn't a mom at the time, but one of the moms brought me a little bouquet of flowers and a Mother's Day card saying she was thankful her little girl had a fill in "mommy" when she had to work. 
• Just recently Daniel started kindergarten, and I had expressed my own anxieties on Facebook. Especially after his huge meltdown on his 3rd day. Yet a few mom's rallied around me. They sent me messages or texts to see how I was doing and how Daniel was doing. They prayed for me. They prayed for him. They knew just what I needed to hear.
• When I was in high school I accidentally side swiped a car in the parking lot leaving our summer swim clinic. As is turned out, the driver had been my middle school choir teacher. A lot of people didn't like him, but I never had a problem with him. He was SO nice about it. The first thing he did when he got out the car was to ask me how I was doing. I remember being like, "Um...well I just hit your car so not too good." And he said, "Eh...it's my son's car anyway." Haha! He was really calm. He took my info, got my phone number and said he wanted to try to get some estimates and not go through insurance. He called my mom later, and genuinely wanted to make sure I was doing okay. I ended up paying a fair price to fix the damages, but what really made the difference was him making sure I was okay.

These are just the tip of the iceberg. I keep thinking of more and more. It goes to show that kindness is everywhere, and how important it is to keep spreading it.