Tim Tam Kindness

These are Tim Tams and if your Australian you will know them well. They are a double chocolate biscuit with the most decadent chocolate cream center.

Tim Tams are currently holding a promotion which requires you to purchase two packets to enter and so I have been. But what I love about all this is due to my excess of Tim Tam biscuits, I've decided to get creative. I have started a Tim Tam Kindness. I take a packet with me daily and bless whoever I come across and feel would benefit from them.

Today I gave a packet to the staff at my sons school front office. They were so overjoyed and all came over to hug and kiss me. It was so heart warming to see how much a packet of biscuits can touch the heart of someone and cheer them up.

I have also given packets to some elderly ladies in a nursing home and will bless my local librarians with a packet when I visit them next week.

Promotion aside I have become addicted to my Tim Tam Kindness and every time I'm at the store I look forward to buying packets just so I can find creative ways to gift others with biscuits. It is wonderful and now its your turn ... can you gift someone biscuits today?

Starting Conversations

You know what I love? How kindness and love spreads.

I was in the supermarket earlier today to pick up a few things. A lovely older lady served me and as she showed interest in my 2 year old (he was climbing up and out of the trolley) I decided to start a conversation with her. We spoke about her grandchildren and how crazy they were and children in general.

Not long after another older couple join the cue and as I pay and leave I notice that they begin a conversation and carry on from where we left off, grandchildren. The whole mood and atmosphere in the line changed. One friendly conversation changed it.

I have learnt people are dying for connection. To be spoken to and seen. It doesn't cost a thing to say hello how are you, and really mean it. Yet how many of us do? The days I do it always reminds me how much I must do it more.

Thank You Letter

Remember the house I drove past the other day. The one with the dog bowl and “paws for a drink” sign out front? 

Well today I wanted to do something nice for them. To let them know that their act of kindness and generosity hadn’t gone unnoticed…

So I decided to write them a card with some nice words (very similar to what I wrote here the other day) and today I purchased a lotto ticket along with some scratchies to put into the card and placed it in their letterbox.

I didn’t sign my name nor mention who I was or where I lived. I didn’t do it to be thanked. I did it to thank them. This wasn’t about me and my ‘kind act’ but about theirs. I wanted them to know how much this world needs many more people like them and I hope it inspires them to continue opening their hearts and to never stop.

Paws For A Drink

For about a month now I've been driving past a home around the corner from me. On its lawn a container of some sort along with a sign. Every time I drive pass I strain my neck and head to read what it says but am never able as I always pass it too quickly. Today I pulled over to read it.

On it it reads "Paws for a drink" and is decorated with paw prints.

As I read it I smiled. I was smiling because of the love behind this beautiful persons gesture. Every day they must refill that container with clean water not for themselves or even their own dogs but for complete strangers they will never meet.

Don't ever underestimate the difference you can make or kindness you can show. It doesn't require you to spend a lot of money or be incredibly talented or skillful it only ever requires that you open your heart

Give Away The Old.

What I love ... charity.

Our neighbors across the road are in the process of moving and today I watched as the Salvation Army truck pulled up and loaded some very nice high quality leather couches. Couches this couple could have quite easily sold yet instead they gave it away for nothing to the Salvos.

I too choose to give to charities as I often as I can. Only a few days ago whilst cleaning the bathroom I noticed Gabe's baby seat he no longer uses. In that spur of the moment random moments I have I decided to take a photo of it and placed it on a for sale facebook page. I listed it as free to anyone who feels they need and would benefit from it. An hour later I had a young mother of 2 at my door taking this much loved bath seat from me.

Both her and her husband had contacted me and told how this seat came at the perfect time. Bath time for them had become a huge hassle and battle with their almost 3 year old and 6 month old. The husband was constantly trying to juggle the both of them. He told me only the night before he was thinking how handy it would be to have a bath seat. Then the very next day he logs onto facebook and the first thing he sees is my post listing a bath seat for free.

Sometimes life just works out and I love it when it does. I love how on that day at that particular time I decided to clean our bathrooms and in a random moment of me decided to put the baby bath seat up for sale and list it for free. It reminded me how we all hold onto items that for whatever reason we no longer use and no longer serve us. Items that when given away and shared benefit others in a way that it never could us. I love giving.

Kind Words

I am grateful for the kind words of others. Those comments, messages, conversations and exchanges we have that leave us better off than when we started. You know the ones. They uplift you, inspire you and encourage you.

I am grateful for those words especially on the days I need them most. Which so happens to be the days I receive them the most, or perhaps its only these days I allow them to sink deep and choose to take note.

Either way they remind me I am never alone. That someone out there not only hears me but cares.

Treasure your friends and remember it only takes one friend for you to never be alone. Just one.

Recovering Complain-aholic

We all know someone with cancer or who has had cancer. And what about the children. Those beautiful, young, strong spirited children, who show us how to smile in the face of adversity. 

Children who never complain and are put through more than any child should when young. Their childhoods stripped away and replaced with hospitals, injections and illness.

Today I wrote a card to a young boy who is fighting cancer. He will celebrate his 10^th birthday in hospital as he has many of his previous ones.

How can we not appreciate our own children, their health and ours when we see so many that aren’t as fortunate. As a past and recovering chronic complainer I can no longer complain about such idle things. Life is a gift, your health is a gift, the eyes you’re reading this with. A gift. There all gifts.

It’s hard sometimes not to get caught up in everyday problems but when I remember that others out there have real problems and real issues it always puts my own into perspective - mine are so small and pointless in comparison.

The things I can complain about sometimes are embarrassing to admit, but as I mentioned I’m in the process of giving that up. I want to embrace life not condemn it.