Act of Kindness Friday

[Indiana]

I was thinking about acts of kindness this morning.

Jake is sick so I ordered a hamburger and rice from culinary service yesterday. The concierge put on the ticket Jake is sick. The chef brought up the order he said he had to cook the meat to pass the health code. He said nothing was on the hamburger or in the rice. I was able to finish the meat by simmering to get all the fat off of it.

I thought it was so nice for the chef to bring it up and also for him to make sure nothing was on it and cooked enough that I could finish it.

What act of kindness have you recently received?

[ellyphant]

Good morning, Indiana! Hope Jake feels better soon.

We recently received cucumbers and zucchini from 2 different friends. That was certainly an act of kindness. Will have our own garden next year. hopefully.

[OKay]

Good Morning!

Random Acts of Kindnes (RAK) is one of my most favorite community efforts. We have recently had a huge RAK effort in our community in honor of a little boy that was in a tragic accident 1 year ago. It started several weeks ago and received local media coverage. I'm still seeing signs of it. It seems to be like a snowball.....starts out small and grows bigger and bigger as it touches/involves more people.

Yesterday's RAK we received.......how to pick just one? I was eating lunch at GC with LO and 3 teenagers chatting up a storm. The waitress prepared cotton candy as a treat for everyone at our table.

Yesterday's RAK we gave.....I didn't actually do this one myself, but I did encourage DGS17. DGS17 saw an unknown elderly couple struggling with buggy & packages in the parking lot. He ran over and offered to help. They gratefully accepted his help.

CCC = 44

[helia]

What a wonderful topic for the day, Indiana.

A recent act of kindness. . . .on our last day of hiking, dh didn't give me much of the communal items (tents, cooking pots, etc.) to carry in my pack. It was a long hike that day, 11 miles, about 1/3 of it uphill 200 meters - not too steep but still more strenuous than hiking on the flat. I am not the strongest hiker in the group.

Yes, this means we are safely home from our camping/backpacking trip!

Trip HIghlights: Day 1 (Sunday) - we finished our drive, about 2.5 hours from Marquette, MI. We hiked in 2 miles w/ heavier than usual backpacks b/c we camped on a ridge that night -- no water source, so we hiked in with many liters of water. It was HOT. day 2 - we hiked 8.5 miles, mostly downhill to set up camp at a lovely spot on the shore of Lake Superior. We went for a swim in the lake, which felt SO good. The water was surprisingly warm; I've experienced Lake Superior water before as icy cold. Day 3 - we stayed put, explored the rocky beach, saw a bald eagle, went to a great swimming hole in a river not too far away, relaxed. . . . Day 4 (Wed.) - we had 4 hours of thunderstorms, from 5 - 9 a.m. I discovered our tent leaks - which dh already knew. It is a North Face tent, a great brand -- but is very old. It was a wedding present, in fact. Eventually, everything in the tent not on the sleeping mats was soaking wet and there was standing water in some places in our tent. . . .A low point of the trip. Sleeping bags were only partially on the mats b/c it was so warm we weren't sleeping under them, so they were soaking in spots. We had given S and R our new tent, which did not leak at all, so they were dry. They invited us to hang out in their tent, which we eventually did - another RAK. Kids' tent was dry too. . . . At 9, the rain let up. We all got up, had oatmeal, which dh made for us all, broke camp, packing soaking wet tents, sleeping bags, some clothes, and hiked 11 miles out, starting 2 hours later than originally planned. The wet items added some weight to my pack; I carried some of the storm with me. LOL! Fortunately, my hiking clothes, including boots and socks, were completely dry. Also fortunately, there was no more rain that day, slight drizzles a couple times. Unfortunately, the humidity was so high, it was SO muggy. I was soaking wet with sweat by the end. We weren't out until 6:30 pm. Boy, it felt good to take that pack off and to change from boots into flip flops. . . No serious injuries among the crew, even though I fell twice while hiking (I now have a scraped knee) and dd16 cut herself slightly with a knife. No seriously sore muscles amongst us either! There were some annoying bug bites, but there was a dearth of mosquitoes as compared to other trips we've taken to this park! We got along fabulously with S and R, shared some good laughs. They were great troopers; this was their first ever backpacking trip and R's first camping trip. R has a very cheerful disposition. I might post a link to photos later.

Pepper did well too, though the last day, she figured out how to take off her doggy pack. Whenever we hiked, she kept running back and forth between hikers; we all went at our own pace which meant we were spread out along the path. We think she likes to know the "whole pack" is together, but she probably hiked twice the distance the rest of us did. We did our best to discourage her from doing this. She was very tired by the end.

Back to real life.

Today:
x Lily to the vet for a booster; she is feeling better. We will continue with the meds until they are done.
- finish laundry; we laid out all the wet items to dry. I did one load last night
- groc. store
- dd16 has a friend coming over; dd14 is finishing a dress for her and needs to have her try it on for final adjustments. It is a satin? dress with tulle layered over it.
- probably try to get in a jog

[Twins' Mom]

Quiet morning both in the village and at my house. I am meeting dh at services this evening but otherwise have a quiet day going. Walked the ddogs earlier.

For some reason, I am freezing this morning.

Indiana, I hope Jake is better soon. We all hate it when our fur babies aren't well.

[Nancy]

Dgds left apricots on our door step this week for an act of kindness.

I'm back from doing plant and pet chores took their trash out pets are fine then did my walk this morning while it was still cool. Then I picked up the apples while the coffee was brewing, decided I wanted water and am having breakfast now.

H. is at work might be working on Sat. this week so no class reunion for me if he does but we are glad for the work. [It's sort of a relief for me to be honest.]

K in C yes I saw those bags on Pinterest! But was aware that's where they came from awesome idea I have some old t's that need to be re-purposed.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Helia: looking forward to the pictures.

I'm up and at it. Since I really don't want to see anyone today, RAK might be hard. I'll start by treating myself well. I feel totally yucky and just want to go to bed again. Dh is in there singing right now, so I'll let him finish.

Has anyone seem cloth bags made from old t-shirts? At the consignment store, the lady asked if I wanted a bag for my hat and I did because it was lightly rain and I had a 10 minute walk. She pulled out a cloth bag and I guess I gasped because, having spent a whopping $4.80 there, I didn't feel I deserved a cloth bag. Turns out they take the t-shirts they can't sell, sew them across the bottom, cut off the sleeves, deepen the neckline and it makes a perfect bag. The one I got was fleece so it didn't need any basting at all to keep from fraying where the sleeves were cut off.

I have a number of t-shirts I never wear anymore but have kept because they remind me of places or events. I'll be turning these into bags in the near future.

[BookSaver]

Good morning, villagers ~

Welcome back, Helia! Thanks for telling about your adventures. It sounds like a fun trip in spite of the rain.

Yes, Kathryn, I have one of those bags that I made from a bright green Tshirt I had to wear to work a couple of years ago for summer reading program at the library. It has a fun illustration on it, but I look ill with that shade of green next to my face, so I knew I'd never wear it again. Now it's one of my favorite bags for hauling supplies to sewing group meetings. It's unique so I can't mix it up with someone else's bag, and it's bright enough I can see it from across the room so I haven't lost it yet!

I did turn the edges under once and sewed a straight stitch by machine around the cut-down neck and sleeves. I knew I wanted to keep it a long time. I did not spend any extra time to sew neatly, I just wanted a little reinforcement.

I made another one earlier that I used to carry groceries, did not bother to sew anything other than across the bottom. It lasted quite awhile and after it started looking ratty, I scrubbed the kitchen floor with it and then threw it away.

Today's goal is to take the sewing group newsletter to the printer this afternoon. Up late last night proofreeding and Emailing back & forth with the person doing the layout. We are waiting for 1 more thing from someone else which must go in this issue. Then I have to print a master copy at the library because my home printer has developed a black smudge down the side of the page.

Another day I'll take my printer apart and try to clean the rollers. Today I'll gladly pay the library 10 cents a page so I can hit the road and deliver the issue to the copy shop.

[helia]

Having lunch. Trying to get myself unglued from this machine; it's not like I'm finding interesting articles or anything. . . I've been checking out the Olympics schedule. I guess we can see Olympics events tomorrow? The dh of one of the young moms in our church moms group is the UMich mens swimming coach. He has also been training some Olympic swimmers, not all from US - at least one from China. I assume he is in London now, and I wonder if dfriend went with him with her 2 (or 3) toddlers?? Just learned on fb that a runner from NZ, their flag bearer, actually, has also been training here and has been attending the church of another friend.

Dh has the 2nd load of camping dishes going in the dw now. We empty and wash out all the storage bottles (sugar, coffee, milk powder, hot choc. mix, etc.) after each trip.

I did get my a.m. routine done and have the groc. list started. I'm going to finish that next, keep laundry going, and head to the groc. store.

Oh - I forgot to send well wishes to ((Jake)). I hope he feels better soon. As Twins pointed out, it is no fun to have a sick furbaby.

[Twins' Mom]

A little burst of energy. I mixed up some Trader Joe's banana bread mix as part of the pantry purge, and it's in the oven now. Also started challah in the bread maker and I'm going to try using the bread proofing function of the new oven.

Macs and I worked with the doggie door but Moe didn't get a chance cause there was food involved. Now that they can probably be trusted not to bolt the fence outside we can get them used to going in and out as needed, I hope. The only thing I can't figure out is how to attach these little devices that activate the door to their collars, so I left a message for the invisible fence guy.

This round:
-call to see if I can drop off shred this afternoon before I go to services
-start a lol when ds is done in the shower
-make the bed
-take the ddogs out for a potty break
-clear the kitchen table (must find room in the pantry for grocery stuff)

Pass the BGS!