Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Lets RAK November - Week 2

Another week in November down, another 7 RAKs completed! Here they are!

RAK 8: Thankfully I've never had a fire emergency where I needed to call the fire department to come save the day, but I'm ssssooooo appreciative of the fact that there is a fire department to help if ever I should need them. I wanted to bake some goodies for the firefighters and drop them off at the station. So, I baked some brownies and drove to Station No. 1 in my town.... only to learn that the station was shut down for remodeling. Luckily, when I got there there was a truck sitting out front (apparently there was a mobile-trailer-office set up behind the station where a few fire fighters were in case someone in that neighborhood came for help, though, I never would have noticed the trailer if it weren't for the fireman who pointed it out!) and I saw a fireman loading up supplies. I asked him if the guys in his truck would like the brownies or if I should take them to another station. He said it was up to me, but that they'd eat them. I decided to give them to him and as I drove off I saw the fireman in the front seat stuffing his face with brownie! yay!




RAK 9: I really like when someone posts something on FB that made them think of me. I may be wrong, but I think gone are the days of sending e-cards, so instead I found funny little e-postcards at and shared them with 5 friends on FB. Here are two of my faves. (The two that were the least crude. haha!)




RAK 10: I wanted to make some treats for my apartment building neighbors. I found a delicious recipe on Pinterest for pumpkin snickerdoodles and decided to make them for my neighbors. Imagine their surprise when I rang the doorbell and when they opened the door I was there with little bags of delicious cookies!! Special delivery!!



RAK 11: I didn't get a picture of this, but I'm sure most of you have done this in the past and don't need a picture to imagine what it'd look like... I donated 3 bags of clothing to The Goodwill. I originally wanted to donate them to another shelter, but a friend pointed out that The Goodwill was helping others by providing jobs to people who (sometimes) have a hard time finding work else where because they have disabilities, etc.

RAK 12: I've heard good things about the Starbucks VIA instant coffee so I decided to put them on the windshields of some of the cars in the college parking lot (9 cars total). Jeff says that he doesn't think anyone will trust them to drink them (thinking they might be laced with something?) but I suppose that's their prerogative, I know that I didn't put anything in them and I think it's a nice gesture, because who wouldn't like a free cup of Starbucks coffee?




RAK 13: When running errands I often see people too lazy to put their shopping carts in the cart corral and instead leaving them all over the parking lot. As someone who has worked at a store with shopping carts and who has had to wrangle the carts regardless of the weather I know how bad it sucks to walk up and down every aisle and try to gather up all the carts. So, before grocery shopping one day I took a few mins and gathered up 5 stray shopping carts and put them in the cart corrals. Again, I didn't get a picture of this since I was alone when doing it and needed both of my hands.

RAK 14: I stole this RAK idea from a good friend... I found a quote I liked about beauty and printed up cards to put inside beauty products. Obviously, if you're buying skin aging creams, hair dye, concealer, etc you trying to make yourself appear/feel more beautiful. While I don't see anything wrong with buying and using those things I do wish that women and girls felt more beautiful just they way they already, naturally, are. I put 10 cards in 10 different beauty product boxes. I hope they make the consumer pause and smile, even if just for a second.



That was it for this week! I'll post 7 more next week! Happy RAKing if you're doing any of your own!

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Lets RAK November - Week 1

I read a blog where a woman did 30 Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) during the month of her birthday. It really inspired me and made me want to do something similar. I thought about it and decided I wanted to do 30 RAKs during the month of November. December has become so much about instant gratification, greed, over indulgence, etc. even if you try to limit holiday over indulgence in your own family the world around you doesn't comply. So, I've decided that I want this to be an annual tradition. As Maddy gets older I want her to help decide what RAKs we do, and help us do them as a family. I want it to teach her humility and goodwill toward others. Then, after a month of selfless acts we can be more appreciative of all the shiny, sweet, delicious, beautiful sights to see and treats to eat that are inevitable in the month of December.

These are my first week's RAKs:

RAK 1: There was a big winter storm the night of Oct. 31st, and we woke up to 10"-12" of snow. There is a handicapped man, and an elderly woman living in my apartment building. The last time it snowed I overheard them talking about how when it snows really heavy they feel stuck in their apartment because the task of clearing the snow from their cars is so overwhelming. So, early in the morning I cleared their cars for them.



RAK 2: I made Rolo pretzel turtles and brought them to the library across the street. We spend a lot of time at the library between checking out books and going to story time, so I wanted to show my appreciation to the librarians.



RAK 3: I taped quarters to the kiddie slots at Toys R Us. I remember asking my mom for quarters to get a bouncy ball, sticker, skittles, etc and imagine how awesome it'd be to be 6 years old and just see money there for me to use!! How cool!



RAK 4: I didn't get a picture of it, but I swept up all the fall leaves in the walkway and up to the door way of my neighbor, Lisa. She's kind of OCD about sweeping her doorstep and after the snow melted, all of the remaining tree leaves fell, and it was really windy. Our walk way was so full of leaves! I got Jeff's big push-broom and swept them all away. (Got a stupid splinter! THIS is why I don't do manual labor, people! ;) ) I'm hoping that she noticed when she got home from work, but haven't asked her about it.

RAK 5: I made pumpkin spice rice krispie treats for the apartment management. In comparison to other apartment horror stories I've heard from friends, and landlord horror stories we've lived ourselves, living in the apartment complex we live in has been a pretty enjoyable experience. The grounds are kept nice, if you have a repair request they fix it w/in 24 hours, they're always friendly when we go into the office to pick up a package or ask a question, and they try to make the complex feel like a community with events like holiday BBQs, swim parties, trick or treating for the kids, etc. So, I wanted to thank them.



RAK 6: There was a "help the homeless" event in my town over the weekend where the shelters asked for winter clothes for the homeless... but thanks to some awesome friends coming into town to visit us I missed it. I really wanted to donate some winter clothes, though, so I called around to a few shelters/outreach organizations until I found one that would take my donation. There was a brand new mens winter coat, two beanies, thermal longjohns and some fleece boot liners.

I know, I know... she's not wearing shoes. She was only standing there for 15 seconds.


RAK 7: I donated $7 on the 7th to the Liz Logelin Foundation.

"The Liz Logelin Foundation was established to assist families who find themselves in the heartbreaking, catastrophic situation of having lost a spouse, life-partner, and parent. The Foundation’s goal is to financially assist these families as they deal with the loss of their loved ones, and struggle to move forward. The Foundation was established in 2009 by Matthew Logelin, who lost his wife Elizabeth in 2008."
I've followed Matt's blog for 2.5ish years now and feel strongly that what he's doing for other families, through the LLF, and for his own daughter in the wake of his wife's unexpected passing is nothing short of amazing.
For more info: http://thelizlogelinfoundation.org/ and http://www.mattlogelin.com/

I've really enjoyed doing these RAKs, and look forward to the rest of the month. I'll post another RAK blog next week!! :)