Sunday, January 2, 2011

Donations & Gratitude

Today’s good deed was sorting through contents of my closet to collect a bag of clothes to take to Value Village. We have been working on a project for the last six months or so of trying to reduce some of the clutter in our house, and have taken several car loads of stuff to Value Village to remove it from our lives and place it somewhere that it can benefit someone else.

A portion of the funds from items people purchase at Value Village goes to the Canadian Diabetes Association, so the stuff we donated goes to a very good cause. Scott & I have decided to try and take more of our used items to local organizations that collect them, so that things we do not need can do something to help others.


Daily Gratitude thought for Sunday, January 2nd…

It is possible to give away and become richer. It is also possible to hold too tightly and lose everything. Generous people shall be Rich. By watering others they water themselves. ( Proverbs 11:24-25)

Saturday, January 1, 2011

2011 - A New Beginning

This is the relaunch of a very good idea.

Last year, I read this amazing article in a famous Canadian Magazine about a woman who took on a challenge to perform a month of kindness – 30 acts of random kindness in 30 days. I thought she was very brave because in this modern, 21st century world, most people live insulated as if they are the centre of their own universe and rarely think about the impact their actions have on others.

I didn’t realize at the time the impact this article was having on me personally, but as days and weeks went by, I continued to think about what the article said – it seemed to have a sort of profound impact on my mind and I really couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do with the idea. I do a lot of volunteer work on a regular basis, but this idea seemed to take being involved with my community to a whole new level. I thought about bringing the idea to the rest of my volunteer organization, but what really struck me was trying to see how much of a difference one person could make.
After much soul searching and personal reflection I decided this would be my 2010 New Year’s Resolution – to commit a daily act of caring or kindness every day for 365 days. Just to allow for days when this might not be possible, I also decided to include the option for a daily gratitude for days when there just were no other options available.

Unfortunately, in 2010, I managed to blog about this for about 30 days. I didn't stop committing random acts of kindness, I just stopped blogging about it. So for 2011 my resolution is to blog more about random acts of kindness.

So welcome to the return of The Gratitude R.A.C.K.E.T. (Random Acts of Caring & Kindness Executed Today). I hope you will sign on to follow me in this journey in living a life more in tune with karma and trying to see what effect showing gratitude and trying to be more kind and caring to my fellow human beings (and other living creatures) might have. I suspect that 2011 will be a very interesting year, and I hope you stop by often to see what effect all of this is having on my and my world.

KellyAnne