Act of Kindness – Week #7!!

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted!”

*The act of kindness this week…show kindness by placing coupons around a store in front of the item the coupon is for so that the next customer looking for that item will find the coupon and use it!! 

I am a proud “coupon person”! I like going through the free papers and ads we receive in the mail and cutting out coupons for food places and items we buy at the store! My Dad and I have a Father-Daughter dinner date twice a month on Thursdays. The majority of the time when we are figuring out where we want to eat, I pull out the food coupons I have been saving in my car and let him know the options. I believe I got this habit from my Dad because any other time when we are talking about going out to eat or buying something he asks, “Do we have a coupon?” 

On the other hand, I also think I got my liking for shopping with discounts from my Momma! Kohl’s is a great example of this! Kohl’s almost always has their items “on sale” with a screen that says what the original price was compared to what the sale price is. Plus, I usually have a 20% or 30% off as well! The discounts and sales at Kohl's usually always leaves my Mom and I buying something with the good feeling that we did not pay full price for it! :)

With all this being said though, I have watched a couple episodes of “Extreme Couponing”, and I fall nowhere close to those “coupon people”! If I had the time, it could be a fun hobby though because I am all about being a bargain shopper and saving money!!

*My experience with the act of kindness…I intentionally cut out some coupons of food items and put them in my car so that the next time I went to the grocery store I was ready to put the coupons in front of the food items and leave them for the next customer to use! It was kind of fun finding the food items and then being sneaky to leave the coupons without the people around me seeing! I wanted the coupons to be a complete surprise to people! I again wonder who found the coupons and if they did not think twice about picking it up and using it or if it somehow brightened their day or made them smile! I know I would have an instant boast of happiness if I found a coupon in front of an item that was on my list to buy! The coupons were not for much but when you have several coupons, it really does add up and saves some money!

As you can see on this blog post, I took just a couple pictures of my time at the grocery store putting out coupons! Next time when you open your mailbox and get some “junk mail”…before you recycle it, look through it and see if you can intentionally use a coupon to show kindness to a stranger! This is just another example of a way to show kindness that is free of cost but takes some time and effort! Happy intentional couponing!!

p.s. Please comment below with your own experience with this act of kindness! I would really enjoy hearing about it!! 

Act of Kindness – Week #6!!

"The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention!"

*The act of kindness this week…show kindness by finding a food item that has been in your pantry for a while and use it to brighten a stranger’s day!!

     It is pretty safe to say that the majority of our homes have several non refrigerated items sitting in our pantries or cabinets that were bought a while ago but have not been ate yet! It could be because we have the intention of eating it soon, or the items were on sale so we bought several or sometimes simply because we were grocery shopping without a list and ended up buying items in case we did not have them at home. The act of kindness this week encourages us to intentionally look at what we have sitting in the back of our pantries and think of a way to use them to show kindness to a stranger!

     An example: I believe that it is once a year that the Boy Scouts in our area put a plastic bag on the front door of our home and on the pickup date you are to put the plastic bag outside with canned goods inside. My Husband and I have gone to the grocery store and bought some cans for this before but the majority of the time we just go to the back of our pantry and find several canned goods that were bought a while ago and have not been used! This act of kindness totals less than $10 of canned goods. Once a year while doing this food drive, we are teaming up with other people’s kindness and giving to result in feeding countless strangers and brightening their day!

   

*My experience with the act of kindness…When I say a “food item in your pantry”, most people will instantly think canned goods, but I used POPCORN! You know...the bags of un-popped popcorn that come in a box that you like to buy at the grocery store (usually the “movie theater butter” kind or the “low fat” kind that you add your own butter and salt to because it doesn’t taste very good)! When you think of popcorn, what is the other think that comes to mind real quick?! A MOVIE! Come on…who doesn’t like popcorn with a movie?! And an even better question is who would like FREE popcorn with a CHEAP movie?! The answer is probably EVERYONE! With the ticket and popcorn prices at the movie theater in town continuing to rise, I have found that I like to rent a Redbox movie instead of paying to watch one in the theater! Redbox played a big role in my experience with the act of kindness this week!

    My Mom and I had a day off work this past week, and we spent the day together! It was very enjoyable, and we spent a majority of the day finding birthday cakes in the St. Louis area on the Cakeway to the West region-wide scavenger hunt! Happy 250th birthday St. Louis! It sure was fun starting to find the 250 cakes at signature sites throughout the city and area! 

     I intentionally thought of the act of kindness the evening before and found popcorn sitting in the back of my pantry. In the morning, I met my Mom with a couple bags of popcorn and a permanent marker in hand. I wrote on the bags: “Free! Please enjoy some popcorn with your movie! Have a great day! (Act of Kindness)”.

     At the end of our birthday cake hunt, my Mom and I found a Redbox and left the bags of popcorn there for the next one or two customers to take and enjoy with their movie! Sidenote- As I was writing this blog post, I prayed for the strangers who found the popcorn. They are not strangers to God though! God knows who they are and what their needs are!  

     The majority of our homes have bags of popcorn that have not been used yet (and we don't have a plan to eat it soon either) but if you don't, it probably won't cost you more then $5! This is a perfect example of how you do not always have to spend a lot of money or time on acts of kindness but how being intentional is the key! Lets search our pantries this weekend and find some food items that we can use to brighten a stranger's day! Be as creative as you would like and then please share your experience with me!!

Act of Kindness – Week #5!!

“Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” Ephesians 4:32

*The act of kindness this week…while paying for your food order at a restaurant’s drive thru, show kindness by paying for the person’s order in the vehicle behind you!!

     Several of us have probably heard about people showing kindness by paying for a stranger’s food order in a drive thru line! Maybe you have done this act of kindness or have been blessed with the stranger in front of you paying for your meal! What a pleasant surprise it must be, especially if you are not having the best day! I have never paid for a stranger’s meal or had a stranger pay for mine so when I thought about what act of kindness I wanted to intentionally do this weekend (with being out of town from Friday morning to Sunday evening), showing kindness by paying for a stranger’s meal was the pick!!

*My experience with the act of kindness…I made a homemade note card before going out of town on Friday in preparation for the act of kindness! While being out of town, my family and I almost went the whole weekend without having a meal at a fast food restaurant. That is probably a good thing except when you are wanting to show kindness by paying for the person’s order in the vehicle behind you! Sunday lunch came, and I knew it was going to be the last meal before getting back in town so even though my sister suggested a sit down restaurant, we ended up in the drive thru at a Wendy’s in Indiana! I did not expect for us to get lunch so soon so I had to quickly write a message on the homemade note card (in doing so, I forgot to take a picture of the finished product for this blog post). The message that I wrote on the note card that would be handed to the cashier to give to the vehicle behind us said: “Happy Sunday! Enjoy your meal and please pass along this act of kindness! Ephesians 4:32”

     Wendy’s was a very busy place while we were there too! After paying for our food, the cashier quickly handed us a couple drinks and a couple bags of food. A quick look made us realize that our orders were missing items so the lady had to open the drive thru window to hand us what we were missing several times before we had everything. My husband was in the driver’s seat with our credit card and the homemade note card in his hand the whole time, and I could tell that we were both thinking since we have asked the cashier already for several things that maybe we should not ask her to do something else...BUT being intentional sometimes means stepping out of our comfort zone and a lot of times in my case it means being brave! When the cashier asked if there was anything else we needed, my husband very kindly said there was one more thing and that we would like to pay for the order behind us!

     As we were pulling away from Wendy’s, I could not help but look at what vehicle was behind us. It was a minivan with a lady a little older than me driving it. My husband prayed before we started eating and asked a special blessing over the person/family in the van behind us! Maybe us paying for her meal just simply put a smile on her face and brightened her day! Maybe the Ephesians verse on the homemade note card would lead her to opening a Bible! Maybe she will pass along the same act of kindness and touch other people’s lives as well!

     As we started eating, I kept thinking about the Wendy's cashier lady and how very kind and patient my husband was with her the whole time! I can’t image how many angry customers she gets when orders are messed up. I pray that with my husband being kind to her and since she was “the person in the middle” during the act of kindness, she also smiled and enjoyed her day!

     What I learned the most from this experience was…while focusing on showing kindness to the vehicle behind us, we just might have showed as much or more kindness to the cashier lady! Our intentional act of kindness was done with a credit card and note but the kindness we did not really realize we were showing until after it was done was through my husband's words and actions! Let that sink in some…how very powerful our words and actions are!!

p.s. Please comment below with your own experience with this act of kindness! I would really enjoy hearing about it!! 

***A big congratulations to my Grandparent's on celebrating 55 years of marriage this weekend and to my cousins, Amber and Alex, on the birth of their first baby girl!! It was a wonderful weekend away spent with family celebrating these two great events!! 

Act of Kindness – Week #4!!

“I want to live and capture the moments that turn into memories, not just live moments and lose them!”

     It has been two weeks since my last blog post because last Monday my Husband and I were driving 10.5 hours back home from Louisiana (long drives are still enjoyable when you are with someone you love!). We had just returned from celebrating our third wedding anniversary on a 4 night cruise get away! I am so thankful that even though the tan lines (more like burn lines in our case) will fade away, the memories we created of the precious time spent together will not go away! I took around 200 photos of our vacation and if you have not guessed yet…photography and scrapbooking are my favorite hobbies! I always want to look back and remember as many memories as I can with a family member, with a friend, on a vacation etc! I want to capture life on camera so that I can look back and remember the moments that became sweet memories instead of possibly forgetting them.  

*The act of kindness this week…show kindness by helping someone make memories that can last a lifetime (and possibly even longer through photos)!!

Some Ideas of how to show kindness in helping someone make memories to last a lifetime:

1) When you see people trying to hold out a camera to take a picture, offer to take the picture for them! You taking 30 seconds of your time will leave them with a much better photo to remember that moment/memory!!

2) Leave feedback on a website such as Trip Advisor after taking a trip or eating somewhere new in your own town! This could help countless people who are considering visiting the same place you have been!! 

3) If someone you know contacts you to ask questions about the city you live in since they might be visiting, take the time to give them your best advice on hotels, restaurants and activities etc! If you were traveling to somewhere new, it would be very helpful to ask someone you know who lives there some questions!! 

4) Let your family and friends know they are welcomed to stay at your house if they want to take a break from their normal every day schedule! They could visit the city you live in even If you have to work! Saving money on a hotel would greatly encourage some people to take a trip away!! 

5) If you are blessed with a vacation home/condo, offer it to someone to use for free for a get away! I think we all know a person or family we would like to give a free vacation too if we could!! :) 

 

*My experience with the act of kindness…This week I wrote some reviews on trip advisor about our recent time away! My Husband and I have used trip advisor before all the trips we have taken together since being married! It is so helpful to read reviews, see ratings and see pictures of places we have never been to before but will be going to visit! Since I saw how helpful it has been to us, I try to write reviews on several things after getting home from a trip! You also don’t have to travel to do this! You can write a review of your favorite places around where you live for the people coming to visit that you do not know! You could be helping countless people plan a great get away and then hopefully they will make memories that will last a lifetime (and even longer with photos)!!

A big special "thank you" to those who have done #1 - #4 of the above for me!! :)

p.s. Please comment below with your own experience with this act of kindness! I would really enjoy hearing about it!!