Wearing pink

Um, guess what?

I'm still scrambling to catch up. I did write my hand-written letter last night. It's going to my friend who is about to have a baby. It's fill with all sorts of unsolicited advice.

Robert wanted to deliver it herself, but I worry she won't understand the freeway interchanges.

Last night, in perfect timing, I picked up my order of nifty gifties from my friend Mary, who is a Thirty-One consultant.

In my order was a sheet of address labels. They look so perfect on my letter, which by the way, is written on an owl card. Naturally.


Here are the cards... They're designed by Jilly Phillips for British stationary company Paperchase.

Cute, eh?

And look how the address labels just add that finishing touch. Like I said, perfect timing!

You know what else is perfect timing?

I still need to do a Random Act of Kindness. And today happens to be Wear Pink for Cora day. 

Cora was a sweet little baby who died when she was only five days old of an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. One moment, she was nursing happily in her mother's arms. The next, she was gone. Just like that.

Can you imagine?

Five days old. Here you are with your baby, who seems fine. You're holding her. She's a little lethargic, but she's a newborn. You're not expecting cartwheels. The next thing you know, you look down. She's got blood trickling out of her mouth. Can you imagine the shock and horror you'd feel?

I've been following her mother Kristine's story through Twitter, Facebook and her blog, Cora's story, since shortly after this tragic death happened in early December.

Today would have been Cora's four-month birthday. So Kristine, who is doing a knockout job of keeping her daughter's legacy alive and advancing the cause of CHD awareness, is asking people to wear pink today, Cora's favorite color. And to do something kind in her memory.

I'm game.

Not so good

Life has made blogging tres difficile this past week.

It's made sticking to stated goals, a la 20 Little Things, a bit dicey, too.

Let's see. There was work. There was Jazzercise. There was crafting an email containing my best story ideas ever to a certain magazine.

There was fretting about all of the above.

There was a certain degree of laziness. And tiredness. I've been feeling really tired lately.So, yes, there was at least one nap.

There was NCAA basketball to watch. Go STATE! And a weird technical issue at work that messed with my schedule.

There was some sadness that my wonderful next-door neighbors were moving out. Sigh. No more wagon rides for two little buddies. No more knowing just who to ask if we need someone to water our flowers when we go out of town. No more nice conversations in the front yard.

Oh, and there was an Easter egg hunt. Must not forget the cutest part of my week of lazy.

Lost in the wreckage of the week, besides a few planned blog posts, were Random Act of Kindness Day, as well as my plan to fast.

On Tuesday, I sort of meant to fast. That's the problem -- my commitment was so half-hearted.

The funny thing is, life made eating difficult that day. I hate to be like, it was God messing with me!, because aw, I don't know. But first I ran out of time for breakfast at home. So on the way to work, I pulled into the doughnut place before I realized I had no cash. That's all they take. So I got back on the road and saw my bank had a branch on the next corner. I pulled in. Through the exit. So then I had to turn myself around like a big weirdo, all the while wondering if the bank had me on camera and would put my license plate in some "suspicious activity" file. Also I was thinking, "Is this really worth it for a damn glazed cinnamon bun?"

I guess it was, because I got the bun. Then lunch came. I decided since I hadn't fasted at breakfast, there was no point at lunch. So I began to walk up to the cafeteria, when low and behold, I saw my wallet was missing. Duh. D'oh! I left it in my car. A trek out to the parking lot a block away later, and 15 minutes later, I was back at my desk, enjoying my salad. (Of course, eating a salad for lunch makes up for eating a doughnut for breakfast, don't cha know.) Halfway in, my plastic fork broke, mid-spear. I had to finish the rest of the damn thing with a mini fork. And with my fingers.

So can you see why I started to wonder if I really was supposed to fast that day?

I know have only a few days left until April to complete that, as well as write a had-written letter, call my brothers, do my random act of kindness, and go to breakfast with friends. Also, newsflash: the dinner party that's on my list? It's happening in less than two weeks, and I don't have invites out or a menu planned. Also, I've way behind on my book reading, my water drinking has tapered off in a major way, I have yet to set aside 30 minutes for prayer in one week, I haven't taken a video of Luke on our real camera yet in 2010, Jazzercise was totally replaced running and if I've going to grow my own herbs, I need to get going with that now that it is spring!

Damn it!

I hate feeling like I'm so off track. So. My plan for today: I'm going to drink water until my pee runneth clear. I'll see if any friends can have breakfast tomorrow. I will make my menu for the dinner party. I'll write my letter. I will call my brothers. And I will say it now, for the record, that it's official: I will fast on Tuesday. And I'll pray for 15 minutes after Luke goes to bed.

I mean it.

Really.

I'll do it all. Right after a little more NCAA basketball...

Random Monday quick hits....

• It's 7:42 a.m., and I'm proud to report that I've been home from my workout for more than an house. Jazzercise, 5:30 a.m. I went once last week. I hope to go at least twice this week. 
• I have an idea for Random Act of Kindness Day, which is coming up on Thursday. It involves Cadbury Cream Eggs. I apparently don't know how to do something kind without fattening people up. We'll see if I stick to this idea or figure out something better in the coming days.
• I made one of my 20 Little Things to fast once per quarter. Well, guess what? Quarter one is just about up. A week or so to go. Which means I'm going to be doing a one-day fast in the coming days. I'm considering doing it tomorrow. That means eating dinner tonight and then no food again until dinner Tuesday. I worry a bit though that I'm not "prepared." But I don't know, maybe that's missing the point. Part of me feels like I should go on a mini-fast to prepare for my fast. Or at least eat, like, mostly fruit today.
• MSU is in the Sweet Sixteen! One of the best buzzer beaters I've ever seen from the Spartans. Shots like that never seem to fall for them. I have doubts they can go much further without Kalin Lucas. But still very cool to see them back in the Sweet Sixteen. Where they belong. :)
• I rearranged my family room yesterday, and I am so wishing I'd done this, oh, three years ago. Now we need to get two new armchairs, and that room will finally be a comfortable place. Yay!
• And finally, I never take photos of my cat anymore. Luke eats up most of my camera attention. But the other day she was curled up in the sun, and I took a few photos for old-time sake. Enjoy, and enjoy your Monday, too!

Orange you glad you know me?

OK, that was lame.

A few things.

First of all... I don't feel much like talking about any of this, or doing anything productive, or being a contributing member of society in any meaningful way right now. I'm a little bit obsessively following the story of one Layla Grace, a 2-year-old who is on death's doorstep with cancer. I've only been following her story for the last two or three days. So let me say, I cannot explain to you why it has me so emotional. I've been crying on and off for the last two days for this child. Here I go again... but just the thought of the pain that mother feels... and to read how strong she seems in all her writings... I just feel sick. Also, it's probably PMS. But really, I feel sick with sadness. It's heartbreaking.

You can become a sad and obsessed follower of this story yourself by reading her blog at www.laylagrace.org or her twitter feed at @laylagrace.

There's no good way to transition from that talk about real life and death matters to what's going to follow: a story about an orange.

It's not even a very compelling story. But here goes.

Thursday was Random Act of Kindness Day. I had no idea what I was going to do. But in the morning, I went and had my finger-prints taken for the Detroit Reading Corps. The parking lot at the building was the kind with a gate, a ticket and a bored attendant. I struck me as I was pulling in: when I left, I could pay for the car behind me! But then when the time came, a) I didn't know how much that would be, as the price depends on how long you stayed, and b) I was slightly concerned that the booth attendant would just keep the money since there was no car actually behind me in line.

I know. I'm judgmental.

But I never had the chance anyways. Right off the bat, she tells me that they won't take $20 bills, which was all I had. In fact, I'd just gone to the ATM in the building and paid a $3 fee to take that money out after seeing a sign on the way in stating they also don't take credit or debit. It said nothing about $20s. My only solution was to re-park and go back inside to buy something so I'd have smaller bills.

Let me say, I did not look at this like, oh, YIPPEE, just what I wanted to do when this whole process has already taken way longer than I'd planned! No. I was just a tad more grumpy with that, thinking things like, "Really, parking lot booth, you don't take 20s? Or debit cards. REALLY?"

But then I realized that maybe this was my chance. I went into the little deli/convenience store and grabbed an orange. At that point, I wanted it for myself. I usually eat one at work each day, but I'd forgotten to bring one. But on my way out I felt like I was supposed to offer it to the attendant.

Here's what I thought as I drove up: She's going to think I'm crazy. She's going to think I'm pitying her, that I think she is a poor single teenage mother on welfare who needs a free handout. She is going to think I poisoned the orange.

Aren't our brains stupid?

So what happened? I said in a totally-I'm-not-pitying-you way, "Would you like an orange?" To which she said, "Sure. Thank you." She took the orange, set it down, and then said, "Would you like a receipt?"  I waited for it, and then the gate rose, and she finally made eye-contact with me and smiled just the teensy-tiniest smile. Her lips barely moved. But I saw it as she said, "Have a nice day."

Anyway, I know it's kind of lame. An orange. What kind of act of kindness is that? Probably true. It didn't feel like much.

I hope it felt like a little bit more than that to her.

Your ideas please

Oh, crap!

I mean... oh yea!

Tomorrow, according to the alert my Google Calendar just sent me is Random Act of Kindness Day. Second official.

Should it be that hard to think of something to do? No.

I could.... let someone ahead of me who needs to merge on the highway? I could put a candybar in someone's box at work. I could send my parents flowers. I could shovel someone's driveway.

But see I list that stuff and then my mind goes through all the reasons those ideas are no good. The first, I usually do anyway. The second, well, we all know high-fructose corn syrup is evil, and what if they gave up chocolate for Lent, and what if they start to think they have a weird inter-office stalker or something? The third is sooo been done. I mean, I did it last month. The last... well if someone I didn't know was suddenly shoveling my driveway, I think I'd be just a little bit frightened (like... who IS that?!?). Plus there's the issue of Luke.

This shows you how my mind works. It rationalizes all the joy out of ideas before they ever bloom.

So, give me some of YOUR ideas to trash!

Won't you?

I need help!

Reading elsewhere

Go on six dates with my husband

Here's a blogger who is shooting much higher than me. She's doing a date each week with her husband. They stay home and don't spend money, which is makes it interesting. They take turns figuring out what they'll do during their designated "date" time. She has a contract on her Web site if you want to participate. I feel like I could never do this! But it's a great idea.

Drink more water
Here's a five-step plan to help anyone who is trying to drink more water.

Establish a 6 a.m. workout plan that works.
Another mom who blogs is also playing with working out in the morning. Maybe she's on to something -- going to an actual class to ensure she's up and working out. It's really easy to tell myself I'm going to skip it (as I did all week) when I'm just going downstairs to workout to a DVD.

Make something crafty
I love these mosaic garden planters. So cute. Maybe this will be my craft project? We'll see. I'm going to collect a bunch of ideas before picking something.

Eat more whole grains
Oprah had Michael Pollen on her show this week. He's the writer who came up with the phrase, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." On the Big O's Web site, she has a little guide to cooking with whole grains. I think that can be the stumbling block for a lot of people who look at these bird seed looking stuff and think, 'What the heck am I supposed to do with that?'

Do a Random Acts of Kindness each month
I noticed this story. Kind of cool. Someone dropped a pair of rings into a Salvation Army bucket, and it's being chalked up as a random act of kindness.

ROAK Day!

Before we begin, I need to get something off my chest.

I feel like crap.

Not so much physcially. More mentally.

I'm sort of living inside a Sweet Valley High book. Or a Lindsey Lohan movie. At least, that's how some days feel at work. It's draining, exhausting and demoralizing. I haven't felt so unpopular since a kid rammed my head into the lockers in sixth grade.

I wish I was the type of person who was effortlessly happy, but that's never been me. I need to work at it.

My life is really fanstastic, and I'm nice. Really. And smart. Really. So I need to stop letting people who don't know me convince me otherwise.

OK, I feel a little better now. But that is where my heart is at right now, and that's where it was yesterday, too. Low.

I thought about my random act of kindness on and off throughout the day. I keep circling around two things -- what makes an act random and whether doing nice things for people I know should count. I know I previously said they shouldn't. But I thought for the first try, it might be OK to ease in. "Random" I suppose means with no other agenda than to lift someone's spirits in an out-of-the-blue manner. Works for me.

So I decided to buy my mother-in-law flowers.

She watches Luke on Monday afternoons. She came early yesterday so my husband could go to the doctor, and she stayed late so I could go the dentist. She does stuff like that all the time with no complaint. She's fabulous with Luke, and in generally. I supposed I'm building a case for why she desreved the flowers, and in this instance, that's besdies the point. But anyway, she did.

After the dentist, I stopped at a flower shop. With the shop-owner's help, I picked out a few green and white blooms. She tied them up with an orange bow. As she arranged them, I sat for 10 minutes in near silence for the first time all day. I thought about giving the flowers to my mother-in-law. It made me feel a little bit giddy. I really wanted the woman to ask what the flowers were for, but she didn't.

She handed them to me, and I stuck my nose in, inhaling deeply the floral scents.

So pretty.

It literally took stopping to smell some "roses" to make some of the stress slip away.

When I arrived home, Luke pointed right to the flower. I showed him the bundle and I set my stuff down, and then said to my MIL, kind of awkwardly I'm sure, that they were for her.

She said, "But it's not my birthday or anything!" I said they were for "just because" and gave them to her.  She declared them beautiful and then set them down and went on to talking about what had gone on that day. The whole thing felt rather... odd. When she left (after staying even later to help me feed Luke and rush out the door to a meeting) she hugged me and thanked me again.

She sent an email thanking me again today. "Just wanted to thank you again for the beautiful flowers - I love the green/ white look - very fresh and contemporary .... it was so thoughtful of you ..."

That was nice on an otherwise not-nice day.

It bothers me how quickly I let positive moments in my life fade away, to be replaced with negative emotions. Maybe as these days keep going, I'll get better at that.

No. 18 -- Do a random act of kindess each month

Why it's on the list: Because I suck at this. I swear I'm a nice person, although I'm sure there are people who would dispute that. I can be opinioated and blunt and strong-willed. But deep down, I really am nice. But I don't let that side of myself out to play as often as I should, especially when it comes to total strangers. I have participated in a random act of kindess event, and what I did was buy a chocolate bar and give it to a pair of strangers. It was shocking to me how nervous that made me. Why is it so hard? Hopefully after this year, it won't be.

How I'll do it: Well, I think first of all, scheduling it will help. (It all comes back to the pesky calendar!) I think it might be good to have a certain day of each month in mind as my random act of kindness day. So I hereby declare the.... 25TH of each month to be my personal random act of kindness day. To help in the idea department, I've been doing a little online research.

There's a foundation out of Denver called Acts of Kindness. They have a newsletter and a Twitter feed. There are a few lists online from other bloggers who apparently have more ideas than I do. There's even a random act of kindness map, which I'm kind of baffled by.

More than anything, I'm going to try to be a little more aware. Aware of the nice gestures I see others making. Aware that there are people around me who could use encouragement. I think too often I walk around quite lost in my own head. In order for this to happen, I need to begin to gaze outward a little more.

Here's a cool thing about this! If you live in the Metro Detroit area and want to suggest someone who could use an act of kindness, please leave me a comment! Or send me an email at 20littlethings@gmail.com. This will make it a little less "random," but I think that's OK.