Acts of Kindness: Planning Stages 1

Already ideas have been pouring in for my birthday celebration. Thank  you to those that have tweeted, facebooked, and simply just bounced ideas around with me.

The feedback has been very positive with only a few raised eyebrows and a reminder that I would only have about 45 minutes per act of kindness IF I worked the 24 hours straight. I plan to sleep a few hours of that day starting somewhere between 6 and 8 am so really I'm looking at 12 hours or roughly 20 minutes per act of kindness. But I still feel this is possible with the help I hope to have. That and some great planning.

Some of the ideas I've got so far are (remember this will be just days before V-Day)

• Giving away homemade valentine cookies 
• Giving out valentines or just special notes under some windshield wipers
• Prepaying for someone's coffee (or several someones)
• Helping elderly put groceries in their cars

There have been other really really great ideas but I don't want to give everything away already! Some of these things will require more than my allotted 20 minutes but other things will take much much less so I'm confident that this will all work out.  I want to hear from you so please keep your thoughts and ideas coming!

Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind. --Eric Hoffer

I Need Your Help

A Call To Action.

Actually, it's Saturday, nearly 10 am and I'm not exactly pumping on all cylinders here yet. But I do have some ideas percolating along with my coffee. Or at least the coffee in my mind as I'm currently at work and am drinking the hard stuff- Coke.

A thought has been rolling around in my mind for a few weeks now. Now normally, I don't start planning my birthday before Halloween but this year is different. On my next birthday I will turn 33. That's 1/3 of a century and reason enough for me to go all out.

But I'm not going to celebrate in what many would consider a normal way. There will be no big party, no balloons, no cake(there will be cake)  and heaven help us all if there is another blizzard and my husband and kids have the flu this year.

Next February I'm going to celebrate my birthday with 33 Acts of Kindness. There are only 24 hours in the day so this will take some careful planning (probably involving a few lunch meetings) to map out a plan for these 33 Acts of Kindness.

My friend Eric has already signed up. He's always looking for a good reason to have a blogathon and helping me perform acts of kindness sounded like fun. I, of course, am taking additional volunteers and more importantly, I'm taking ideas. I have five or six already and am also checking out the ideas from HelpOthers.org but that's far from my goal of 33.

So the call to action that I mentioned earlier, here's where you come in. Comment here (if blogger will let you) with your ideas or support, comment on Facebook, or tweet your help to @leslee79z.

I'll try to update this blog at least monthly as more information becomes available. I look forward to hearing and reading all your ideas and implementing them as well.

Road Trip

My friend Eric loves any excuse for a blogathon. Today he and his merry troupe of friend a doing a road trip blogathon. They got up early this morning and after breakfast set out on a road trip taking in some of the sites, and coffee and food along the way. You can read about it about here.

Nickel and I have been on a few out of town trips. Some more fun than others. I can recall a road trip I took with three friends about six months after graduating high school that ended with my head next to a tree on the side of a mountain, but that wasn't so much fun as it was scary, at least part of it. But none of which  I really feel are worthy of a blog. So instead I will bore you with vehicles that may or may not be fun to take a road trip in.  Enjoy.

The stiletto. Everyone woman needs at least one pair of these in the closet and one in the garage is what I'm saying. Lipstick to match is must!

 For a short bus, this big yellow is pretty pimping!

 I think the turtle and the duck should go together. For those friends with large groups that have to take more than one car. I call shotgun!

Peanut would love to have a purple and pink shark to cruise around town in.

 The snail and horse and carriage are pretty steampunk! I love them! And bonus with the snail, the kids ride on top!!

 And last but not least, the Oscar Mayer wiener van. "Oh I wish I was an Oscar Mayer wiener..."



Sandwich Maker

In my house we often have what I like to call, "Choose Your Own Adventure" meals. Growing up I loved reading the Choose Your Own Adventure books. For those of you who might be unfamiliar, these books start out much like any other other book on page one (or 3 as often is the case). At a pivotal point in the book the reader is given two options. If they want A to happen they turn to page XX and if they want B to happen they turn to page YY to continue reading.  The point of the story is that the reader gets to choose what happens next. 

My Choose Your Own Adventure meals are much the same except each eater starts with whatever they want. Say Nickel and I both want a salad he can add chicken, tomatoes, croutons and cheddar cheese while I add strawberries, blueberries and feta.  

Tonight TheBoyWhoDoesNotTalk(much) wanted a ham sandwich. Since he's only three I gave him half of a sandwich. 

That wasn't enough for him though. And true to his name he didn't ask for sandwich. No, my 3-year old went into the kitchen got out the bread and ham and made himself a sandwich, thank you very much.

Guess who just joined the Choose Your Own Adventure supper club?! I'm stoked. 

Be Still

It'll take more than 140 character to express my love for silence so I have to blog instead of Tweet. Darn, right? The three of you that read my blog might appreciate a few extra words now and then.

Today my supervisor took me out for a milkshake on our break today. She was worried that I was overstressed and perhaps unhappy with my job. Overstressed yes, but for the most part I really do love my job. I'm surrounded by books all day long. I get to talk about books all day long. And I get paid! What's not to love there? Now, the people well there lies the problem. I'm teasing. Mostly.

Over the last seven months I've met a lot of people. Several of these people don't have jobs. Several of these people probably don't sleep in a house most nights. But most of these people are still very kind and polite. And after seven months I've even started remembering names and faces. I know there aren't very many people in their lives that care enough to remember who they are. One gentlemen, I know, lives in his car. He stays in the library for most of the 12 hours we are open. I guessed his name when he walked up to the counter the other day and he smiled the broadest smile because I knew his name. We may exchange only three or four sentences every day or two and he never expected me to remember. But it's not just the names of the everyday homeless that I remember. A well to do patron comes in every so often to bring us gifts of books he just couldn't wait to read and went out and bought himself. Several months ago he was telling me about some Michael Connelley stories (author of Lincoln Lawyer and Fifth Witness) and mentioned another series by this author that we didn't have in our collection. I requested them and a volume containing three stories was purchased. When he was in a few weeks back checking out different books I asked if he had seen the one we had just bought. He was surprised I remembered a conversation from back in early spring. Some people, some conversations I do remember. Others I don't. But it's people like these two guys that make me really love my job. That make me look forward to going in to work to help.

The flip to that coin though are the patrons that come in that have had a bad day. Or just a bad life. They're rude. They're never satisfied. They're impossible to please. They are no fun to be around. But they're everywhere, in every job especially jobs that deal with the public. And then there are the children. The children whose parents come to play on the computer for two hours while their children loudly run amok with no supervision. The children whose parents kick them out of the house at 9 am and expect their kids to stay gone all day long so they can sleep or whatever, and no they don't always go home for lunch.  This group of people I don't like, or rather the irresponsible lazy parents of the children and the mean people. This group of people tends to dominate the library in the summertime. With temperatures rising peoples nerves are getting thinner. Luckily, school here starts in just a month and hopefully our days of 100+ degree weather will end soon as well.

But no matter what kind of day I'm having, good or bad I look forward to when I'm off work, the children and Nickel are in bed fast asleep, and when the house is totally quiet except for the hum of the air conditioner. When I close my eyes and take a deep breath and just savor the peace. Savor the quiet.

Psalm 46:10a says “Be still, and know that I am God". Often I shorten that verse even more and remind myself "Be still, and know". And when I'm savoring the quietness I shorten it even more to simply "Be still".

More Crack!

Baby Butter doesn't talk. Well, he doesn't talk much. He's three years old now, has an 11 year old sister so mostly he points and grunts. His needs are provided for him sometimes even before he needs them. And he communicates very well without words.

Recently he has woken me up at 5 in the morning holding a cup and a the bottle of juice. Two guess as to what he wanted and the first one doesn't count.

One of my closest (and newly married!) friends is a speech patholigist so we've gone to see her a few times. I'm not overly worried about his lack of verbal communication, but a little help never hurts in my opinion. With her we've been working on some baby sign language as well as the actual words. The signs make it clear what "Mo" and "Jew" mean.

Tonight Butter again brought me a cup and the bottle of juice and he said "Mo" and "Jew". We're still getting the hang of two word sentences. After seeing to his thirst he showed me an empty bowl and asked for "Mo". We walked to the kitchen and said "More crackers?"

"Mo Crack!" he replied. I laughed. Close enough.

The Update

I intended to post this a week ago but as life goes, it was busy, hectic, and after my sigh of relief I just moved on.

The Results
The ultrasound results came back on July 5th. Everything that should be there was there. Everything looked like they were suppose to look. And the doctor saw nothing abnormal.

First sigh of relief.

I did have to wait a couple of days for the results from my HE4 blood test. It too came back fine. PTL!

Another Dr. Visit
Baby Butter turns three this month. That of course meant a visit to Dr. Pontious. Since I haven't seen him myself since he removed the child from me for just a general health check up I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone.

Gee, it looks like my blood pressure is up. I don't know how that could've happened. Honestly though, I've been having headaches for several months and I just ignored them, took ibuprofen and called it good. I'm still adjusting to the blood pressure medicine that doc put me on. Hopefully the minor side effects will ease quickly.

So there it is. The update of my life for anyone that's interested in reading this blog.  Next post will probably be about a certain little boy's birthday.

Feeling Nervous

This isn't going to be one of my funny posts. Or at least it's not suppose to be. If there is laughter, it's a nervous laughter.

A week and a half ago I went to my doctor to have my yearly check up. I always request a CA125 blood test when I go. The CA125 is an ovarian cancer pre-screening blood test. You see, I have this particular type of cancer in my family. Up until a year ago it was only on my dad's side of the family, his mother died when I was about 8 years old. Last summer my mom's sister also fell victim to this horrible cancer. I do what I can to watch for this almost silent until it's too late, killer by the blood test.

Last Friday the doctor's office called. My levels were up. The CA125 is not a definitive test. And my levels were not high, just up. "Don't worry," they said. Ha. And and I say Ha-Ha! Don't worry? I roll my eyes, two people in my family have DIED because of this cancer and I'm not suppose to worry?!

So today I found myself entering a hospital for further testing. Another blood test, this time and HE4. Another ovarian cancer screening blood test and an ultra sound. I was alone, but that was by choice. I knew I would be a basket case if I allowed my friends to accompany me as they requested. Nickel of course didn't ask to go and I didn't ask him. That would have been harder. As it was, I managed to keep a brave face the entire time.

I won't have any results for a day or two. All I know is the tech that did the ultrasound took lots of pictures and measurements. She wasn't allowed to tell me anything good or bad. So I wait. I hate waiting. Hopefully by this time tomorrow I'll have good news and I can cry and release all this tension I have built up. But for now I head back to work.

Isaiah 30:18
But God's not finished. He's waiting around to be gracious to you. He's gathering strength to show mercy to you. God takes the time to do everything right—everything. Those who wait around for him are the lucky ones.

Blogathon revisited

I have stolen borrowed, my friend Eric's IPAD. It is pretty awesome. I want one. Eric doesn't seem to mind that I've stolen borrowed his IPAD. Today we are celebrating his birthday in typical Eric fashion with a blogathon. I'm not one to pass up on a blogathon so here I am in the cafe blogging! He's a little distracted. I wonder just how far I can make it out the door. I'll try that later when he's not looking.

Meanwhile in the real world I need to report an addition our family. Her name is Phoebe Kat, and yes she's a cat. Was it obvious? She is fluffy and grey and she loves attention. I'm still undecided on how much I like her. And as a side note, I have sang "Smelly Cat" to her on more than one occasion.

Updates

It's hard to update my blog when nothing noteworthy is going on in my life. I've read several books. I've worked. I've played with the kids who are growing up way too fast. In fact, Baby Butter turns three next month. We are without our big pool this summer so we're thinking about having cousins, aunt, uncles, grandparents and friends meet up with us at the Tulsa Zoo then possibly a dip in my BIL's pool. It's still in the planning stages. But since it's just a few weeks away I better get on the ball!

Peanut recently spent a couple of weeks on the pretty side of the state. The first week she stayed with my parents who doted at her. The second week she went to the church camp I went to from the ages of 9-19. It's pretty cool that she's experiencing some of the same things I experienced at that age.  Peanut jets off for her next church camp adventure next week. She's very excited. I'm excited for her. I always hate to see her leave but I know she needs these experiences and having one less kid underfoot is sometimes a mild relief. The rest of her summer calendar is open if anyone else wants to take her! ;-)

Nickel and I celebrated our 12th anniversary this month. We went out for lunch and yes, we took the kids. That's what happens when grandparents insist on living on the pretty side of the state. Not that we would've done more had we had the sitters. We're just not that couple. We acknowledged it, kissed each other and told each other how much loved them but that's about it. 12 is not so special even if it is rare in today's society. I hear that at 17 years some couples celebrate by going to see Harry Potter. I don't know that we'll ever get that crazy!

So that in a nutshell is what's going on in Fresh-CutVille.

I did warn you it wasn't noteworthy.

Posting Comments

For the last couple weeks I've noticed that blogger has had some difficulty allowing people to post comments. And I've had trouble posting comments on other blogs as well. This does not make for a happy blogger.

But what really upsets me is the fact that the spammers don't seem to be effected by this. At all. I have comment moderation and allow all the comments from people I know but fliter out the spam. I get so excited when I see a comment waiting for me in my inbox and then the anger I feel when it's just another spammer leaves me a little on the Hulking side.

However, I've made a few little tweeks to the commenting portion of the blog and hopefully you will be able to post comments again.

I hope so.

You wouldn't like me when I'm angry...

Who is your most fabulous friend?

The third question today comes from Constance and she asks:

Who is your most fabulous friend? ;)

Well, Constance. I have to tell you, I don't have just one most fabulous friend, but rather a small, elite group of friends. They are my GNO friends (and that G in not silent because there is nothing silent about this group of ladies).

In the beginning there were four of us. We met about once a month to drink coffee and tell stories of the things happening in our lives.

Pictured here from top to left: Abby, Julie, Vickie, and myself

Then we added a couple more.

From left to right: Abby, Constance, Vickie, Julie (in the back) and Melodie

Our lives continually change. Abby moved and Julie will soon move away too. But I know that no matter where I am in my life I can pick up the phone or drop by their house and these girls will make me laugh when I am sad. Feed me when I am hungry. And love me despite all my flaws. They are my besties. Not to be confused with my Beasties, they're obviously Boys. ;)

Beastie Boys

Why do gnats always try to fly into your nose and eyes?

Our second question of the Blogathon comes again from ibmeloudious and she asks:

Why do gnats always try to fly into your nose and eyes?

UGH! I hate gnats. And what's up with the silent G? Is it really necessary? It's as annoying as the little flying bug itself. Without going back to school to ask a college professor I've come up with some reasons why gnats are attracted to your face.

• Their life purpose is to make your life harder.
• Eye Gnats (one variation of gnats) are actually attracted to eyes because they feed on mucous or sebaceous secretions, pus, and blood. Yum-O!
• They like decaying stuff. Like trash. Or bad breath.

If any of you have more information regarding gnats and would like to share with ibmelodious please feel free to comment, refute, or gripe in the comment section!

What would you do if I handed you a squirrel in a sweatshirt?

If you missed the post From the Stacks you might not understand, but then again, you might not care. The gist of things is for my friend Eric's Blogathon I've opened up my blog in a "Ask the Librarian" sorta way.

The first question I received came from the adventurous ibmelodious and she asked

What would you do if I handed you a squirrel in a sweatshirt?

Wow. What a great question because you never really know when you're going to be faced with this type of situation.

For instance, perhaps you bought this cute little squirrel at Sugar Bush Squirrel for 28.99 plus S&H.

If that were the case, I would simply say "Thank you it's adorable! I can't decide where I want to put this little treasure." And a week later you would receive a thank you card in the mail or handed to you in another social occasion.

But if I were handed a live squirrel wrapped up in a sweatshirt I would probably just throw the sweatshirt down and run away as fast as I could like a girl screaming my head off. You know squirrels. They have fangs and stuff.

However, if this squirrel were injured and that is the reason it is wrapped up in a sweatshirt I will ask you "Where was your towel?" then we could contact one of the local wildlife rescue people and after the adventure we would sit in one of the local area coffee bars and retell the story over and over until it grew in epic proportions and Lifetime asked if they could make a tv-movie of the event. We would of course agree and then pick out the actresses we would like to play us. I'm going with Sandra Bullock or Tina Fey.

From the Stacks

I told my friend Eric that I would have this post up the Friday before the great Blogathon of 2011. But with so many things going on it didn't happen. Hopefully this will still work like I hope.

So, here's the thing. Eric and Ben are going to blog, vlog, and drink coffee for 24 hours. Why yes, yes they are a little crazy. But it's going to be fun too. I asked Eric if I could hang out and participate and he told me that he was going to ask me the same thing. I love it when things happen like that!  So my part of this Blogathon will be this:

You ask the questions in the comment section of this post and I'll answer them.

Sounds easy enough, right? I'm even going to change my settings to allow even non-bloggers to post comments. But it'll be more fun if you at least sign your name to your comment. If I deem the question awesome I'll even answer it in its own blog post during the Blogathon. So... what do you want to know.

*P.S. I feel the need to say that ridiculous questions will most likely be answered with ridiculous answers. :)


**Edit** I should mention to any new readers that the reason I'm doing this is because I work in a library. Every day people call or come into the library because they have questions and believe that the people working in the librarys will have the answer. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we just point them into the direction they will most likely find their answers. Sometimes we spell words like "Sapulpa" for them.

A 24-Hour Blogathon? Sign me up!

My friends Eric and Ben are a little crazy. That's why I love them so much. A few months ago they dreamed up this crazy idea of staying up for 24 hours and blogging about different things to do in this flat town in the middle of nowhere. I believe copious amounts of coffee will be involved (major selling point for me!). The dream grew and grew and there is quite a little following now. Various other blogger friends, Melodie and Abby are just a couple of my girlfriends that are joining up with these guys with me. We're going to have a blast and you should check it out, participate, and support us with tons of comments.

Friday, the 27th will be a preview night and look for a new blog post here at Fresh-Cut Flowers and check out exactly what my contribution to the Blogathon will be! But for more information now check out Ben and Eric.

See ya then!

A Buttery Good Day

I work every other Friday. Though, I don't particularly like working on Saturday to get these Fridays off I make the most of my Fridays. I try to arrange my schedule to run errands and make appointments to these Fridays off but lately there hasn't been much going on. That means Baby Butter and I get to have a day of  F-U-N!!!


This last Friday we slept in. Late. We're talking 7:30 am! Amazing, I know. After being lazy we finally got dressed and made our way to Winchell's for donuts. Here is my Baby Butter enjoying his chocolate donut with sprinkles.

After we washed our hands we went to the library. You'd think after spending all week there that would be the very last place I'd want to go on my day off. Well, here's the deal. When Peanut and later Butter were smaller I hated going to the library because they never let me look at books. I'd let them play and they'd scream when it was time to go to the other side of the library for mommy to look at books and as you know, screaming is not allowed in the library. After a while I just stopped taking them. Now that I work there I see the books when they're being checked in, shelved, or are unpacked from boxes before processing. I often take books home and am never want of a good, or at least different, book. (Don't get me started on all the bad ones I've started this year that after a hundred pages or so I just couldn't finish.) So now I don't mind taking the kids to the library anymore because I don't need to looks at books and can just let them play and look at books and when we're done, we're done and we go home.

Batman...I mean, Butter-man likes the puzzles. I'm mean and make him put the one he's torn apart together before he can get the next one out. Well, that's what we're working on anyway. More often than not I end up putting 3/4 of the forgotten puzzle back together so he can move on. But it's a learning process that we're working on.

He's also a big fan of the chess board. We're still working on the rules of this game but he tries. He just forgets that he can't move the Queen in his first move. And more often than not the Knights end up kissing somewhere off the board. Or maybe they're just talking about horse power. ;)

So there you go, updated pictures of Baby Butter.



Nazca Lines

Have you heard about the Nazca Lines? There are several geoglyphs (a drawing in the ground) in southern Peru that date back a couple thousand years, best guess. They are really awesome and you should check out the pictures online.

I learned about them a few months ago when it was a slow night at the library and my coworker and I were looking up crop circles. The Nazca Lines are not crop circles but in our exploration I stumbled on these.

Flash forward to today when another coworker said "Have you ever heard of some lines in South America in animal shapes?" and I replied, "Yes, yes I have." I quickly did a Google search and voila! there was all the information for her. I'm sure she was impressed.

I will never again complain about being so bored at work that I'm "forced" to play on the internet. Because I just never know when that information will come in handy.

:)

The Last Lecture

I did it again. I read a book that made me cry. You'd think after reading The Art of Racing in the Rain I would've learned my lesson. It appears I have not.

I've been eyeballing this book ever since I started working at Hastings. I saw an interview with Randy Pausch on Oprah and was blown away by his story. In case you don't know, Randy Pausch was diagnose with terminal cancer and as a professor he was able to give a final speech, or Last Lecture. Go here to watch the YouTube of it. I dare you not to cry. It's a little over an hour long but worth every minute of your time.

Seeing as I am terrified don't like to cry I purposely avoided the book but still I was drawn to it. I'll never read it, I told myself as an excuse not to buy it. But then I started working at the library and I was no longer tempted to buy the book. Instead, the local library not only had the book but they also had the book on audio. So one day, I took the plunge and checked out the BOCD.

Though I teared up regularly, Randy used humor and inspiration in his book that's not about dying, but about living. Here are some of the things I took with me from this book.

Two quotes from his father, "never make a decision until you have to". And, "just because you're in the driver's seat, doesn't mean you have to run over people." The first I had never really thought about but makes sense. How many times do I make snap decisions when another choice would've been better? Plenty. The second one just makes sense period.

When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody's bothering to tell you anymore, that's a bad place to be. You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better.

I recently had my 6 week review at work. For the most part it was a good review but there were a few things said that stung just a bit. My three month review will take place in the next few weeks but I'm no longer dreading it. They're taking the time to tell me what they see I can improve on. They still care. That's a good thing.

Brick walls are there for a reason. They give us a chance to show how badly we want something.

Ah, isn't this the truth? So many things in life are too easy for us and the generation coming up. We need challenges in our lives to show us just what it is we're willing to fight for. This next quote is closely related.

Brick walls are there for a reason. And once you get over them -even if someone has to practically had to throw you over- it can be helpful to others to tell them how you did it.

I've faced a few brick walls in my life. Some I can tell you about easily. Others are still a little hard to talk about but I will if you ask me. I hope the next time I'm up against a brick wall I look at it like this, with these filters over my eyes.

There were dozens of other things I wrote down in a journal of things I wanted to remember from this book. Simple things that I already know, but need to remind myself of from time to time.  If you have the chance to read or listen to this book I hope you will. At the very least, I hope you'll take the time to watch his last lecture. You won't be disappointed.

The Art of Thank You Cards

Growing up my mother, the saint that she is, taught me to send thank you cards for my birthday presents. I wasn't always consistant with it but I did try. As I grew older I realized that not very many people seemed to do it. And now it appears to be a lost art form in many homes.

After Nickel and I got married my mother kindly suggested I send out my thank you cards promptly so I wouldn't forget. I will admit that the first half did infact go out promptly. The other half...well, lets just say I hope they were not terribly offended when they didn't get one.

I was a little better about my cards when Peanut and Butter were born. And when Peanut was old enough to write "THANK YOU" I too taught my daughter the Art of Thank You cards. She, like her mother, is not always consistant, but she tries.

One year when Peanut was very young we went to the farm to visit Nickel's grandmother. I handed over a card to Grandma who asked if it was Mother's Day card, as it was near that season, but I said no, it's a thank you card from me and Peanut. She confided in me that my sister-in-law and I were the only ones who ever sent her thank you cards. This made me sad. My sister-in-law and I were both fairly new to the family, she had married in just a year before I did. Did no one ever bother to tell her thank you before that? I couldn't believe it. But then again, Grandma had all grandsons and we were the first granddaughters to come along, so maybe I do believe it.

Thank you cards take less than five minutes of my time. I often find myself in Hallmark or in the stationary isle in Walmart admiring the different cards. Mostly I just buy the blank ones with pretty front covers because they can be used for so many purposes. They're perfect for a quick note to say thank you for a recent gift, you were on my mind, or I love you. And since I have two or three boxes at any given time I can choose the one that best fits my mood or purpose for the card. A note, in my own writing lets the person I'm sending it to know that I, me myself, took the time to express my gratitude. I know when I do get thank you notes myself it means a lot to me.

So next time someone gives you a gift surprise them with a thank you card.