Welcome to June 21st the 8th year of Moving Difference!!!
To returning MDYers – welcome back
To new people – Welcome!
We invite you to check out the links about to start your own MDY8 Project….
and we will be posting here about the journey for this summer along the way….
So let the summer of 2019 begin!
Cheers!!!
Hello Citizens of the Earth,
That sounds a bit Orson Wells to me, maybe…..
Hi-ho there you and you and you and you plus infinity,
That sounds a bit vague to me and Kermit-y, maybe…..
Hi fellow humans – welcome to Moving Difference Year 8
That is a bit better but still something missing… ah… it is probably the fact this crazy idea is now 8 years ago and still going and new people are coming in every day and all of us are making a Moving Difference starting this coming Friday June 21 – the first day of summer for 2019….
Yup, that is it.
So welcome again to MDY8 – all the info is here on the pages, cruise around, invite some friends and family, email us if you need any help, and most of all commit to doing 12 hours of volunteer work per person over this amazing summer of 2019!
One hour at a time, doing some good and being that Moving Difference in the world.
And yeah, those of you rejoining us from years past, welcome as well. We all know that last summer was a bit rough on computer issues with the MDY sites, but hey we are a work in progress, we are all volunteers here and we are back. As a good friend once said to me – “Sometimes it is going to be rough, do it anyways.” And to be fair, I honestly thought maybe Moving Difference should quit last year, but earlier this year, I saw the trickle of emails coming in asking to be a part of MDY8 and several emails asking for help to find a volunteer spot for their families and it was overwhelming and it was February. Months of brooding about happened, this morning the new logo came to me for Year 8, and then I peeked in the yahoo email to see over 4k in emails all about MDY8.
Then I freaked out. BIG TIME!
Then I got a candy bar & water and sat down with a pen and paper. The good old “pros” & “cons” list to decide what to do. Obviously the pros won the day and with all that said – we will all do the best we can here at MDY8. Why? well, Moving Difference is at the core about one thing – being a honest simple difference in the world.
So again Welcome to MDY8 – the goal of One million hours plus one more hour in volunteer work over the amazing summer of 2019!
See you on the road!
J & the MDY8 team
p.s. don’t forget to mark your calendars for the sunset of September 22, 2019 and the Silly hat-Big Clean of September 7, 2019!!!
The Moving Difference Year 7 has come to a close. And though with some computer difficulties and other madness, we ALL still finished strong. (Yeah we know there are posts missing and facebook seems to be on the frizzle but still we ALL did it.)
MDY7 is happy to announce that we hit one million PLUS one hours of volunteer hours in our communities and in our lives.
People, you are simply amazing and breath-taking….
And it is as I wander out to the porch away from this computer screen for the last lights of the sunset that means so much to me (& hopefully to you). I will probably sit out there and cry until the last streaks are gone and the stars start to dancing their light forward to all of us.
In closing, while it has been a tough summer, it is still a summer that achieved greatness one hour at a time by each of you. Thank you.
I will never be able to thank you each in personal, but I still do in spirit… and I wish you peace.
In peace – at sunset,
J & the MDY7 team
Please remember that it is the small things that make life special.
It is holding a door open for others, it is a polite smile and a friendly hello to a stranger, It is a bad clean joke to a friend, it is picking up a piece of trash and putting it in trash can.
It is small daily things… they mean the most.
Never under estimate the power of a kind word either.
Kind words open worlds to depths of love and peace unseen to most of us.
MDY7 is about saying a kind word or doing a small thing in action, it is about being you and embracing the world around you and your family. It is about being the good in the world.
Peace out!
In my life, there are some things that I just don’t do easy. Some changes has always been hard to me. It is random little change or big change and change in general, it gets me sometimes in the weirdest of ways.
Life is not easy, sometimes it is just tough & rough. I am not going to pretend that I am perfect, in fact, I am far from it. Today the change came in the form of a new phone, I upgraded my old phone to a new shiny phone. Right now, I am missing my old phone. I don’t know why maybe it is a comfort thing, maybe it is I knew it and just didn’t want one more thing in my life to change, maybe I am scared of both letting go and learning something new.
Again, I am bad with change sometimes. I am human. And that’s is ok. I struggle, cry, and freak out on things and that is okay too. but I keep trying to go forward – to keep going forward…. and yeah I still miss my old phone right now even knowing that.
Sometimes in life, we don’t know what we are capable of until we let go and just go….
It is ok to miss something, it is okay to cry and be upset, and it is okay to move forward still….
It is okay, because it means we are alive and we are capable humans deserving of love, peace and the pursuit of happiness…..
Hope you think about this and maybe stretch yourselves a bit and change a bit as well. Do something for your MDY7 that is a bit out of your comfort zone, and go for it with your whole heart….
until next time,
Peace Campers.
So MDY7 started and I caught a cold that night. A bad one complete with body aches and runny nose and snuft head. I have been miserable but the amazing thing is MDY7 just kept going on.
I see that several hundred of you have alreadly written in to log your hours. And I see that people are also asking for help on what their MDY7 project will be. Promise we are replyong to everybody as soon as we can and as fast as we can. With me being sick we are behind the ball a bit but things are getting better as I am slowly getting better.
So keep being amazing and enjoy this amazing summer of MDY7!
TTYL,
MDY7 is started! With a large drum roll…
It begins….
These are Taiko Drums at the Rothko Chapel in Houston. The drummers will be performing a summer solstice drum. It will be amazing and it will welcome in the beginning of summer 2018 and the beginning of MDY7!
So what is your MDY7 plan? What for 12 hours over this awesome summer are you going to do to help make this world an amazing place?
Just like before log your hours and let us know! Via email, twitter or facebook, all the links work and happily await your news!
And if you need some help getting started, let us know that too. We are happy to work with you and suggest a few places in your neighborhood that maybe be exactly what you are looking for to do those 12 hours with!
Well, the drums are about to start here, MDY7 already has 58 emails with hours to log and a few emails with questions…. it is going to be amazing summer!
Let the drums go…..
To be fair, I honestly was not going to do a year 7 of Moving Difference.
I was going to quit Moving Difference. Leave it at 6 and walk away…
These past two years have been ugly and exhausting on many levels personally – working full time, deaths in the family, other obligations and just life stuff – it took a toll on me and my family.
Then there was Moving Difference, frankly it is hard to keep up on the details of a project of this size, it demands time and energy beyond what you might see as a blog post and a few articles here and there. Many times, I fell asleep at the computer desk trying to encourage and reply to every soul that emailed asking where or how they could strive to help the world be a better place. It was mega burn out.
I thought I made the decision to quit MDY7 back in January but I have spent the last few months fretting over my decision to quit. And it wasn’t until May this year that I realized sometimes it is the soul that remembers, it is the soul that hopes, and it is the soul that keeps each of us, good people, going.
Moving Difference will always be a huge wonderful thing that will evolve and challenge me, you and even us. That is its job, period. It is the soul of all things good when people give a bit of their time to make the world a better place. In realizing that, I realized that Moving Difference must go on.
There will be more details in the days ahead as MDY7 kicks off on June 21, 2018 with the goal of a million plus one more hours of giving back to our communities.
Sure, it is a big goal. Yeah, it is year 7 of it. And yeah, I might fall asleep again at the computer reading and replying to each of your wonderful emails. Yeah, it is going to be bigger again and it might be hard… but let’s be honest, the world we all live in right now needs it.
For you and your family: It is only 12 hours per person of doing volunteer work over the Summer ’18 doing a bit of good in your neighborhood for the world.
For me: Well, I think Whitesnake says it best…click here
“I don’t know where I’m goin’
But I sure know where I’ve been
Hanging on the promises in songs of yesterday
An’ I’ve made up my mind, I ain’t wasting no more time
Here I go again, here I go again”
And I can’t wait…… *cranking Whitesnake to 11*
Campers, it is time to rock this summer – MDY7 here we come….
*air guitar solo*
Today marked the end of MDY6. The amazing sunset that we all have been working towards as a community, as humans and as the world.
We have had our share of storms and rain this year. Both on personal, professional and world level, but we march through and stood firm to doing and being the good in the world.
This sunset tonight means another amazing summer has come to a close and we can look towards the next summer and the rest of life with a promise in our hearts – being a moving difference to the world.
I have cried, laughed and cried again at the sheer humanity of the emails. It has been a wonderful year 6 of Moving Difference. I am grateful to each of you wrapping up your hours aind emailing them over when you can in the next few days.
As of right, MDY6 has reached its one million plus one more goal, in fact we are at about 234,000 hours over that and still counting. (Plus there are more emails still coming in.)
But right now in this moment, I am more concerned about the sunset. This amazing sunset caps the long summer of giving back.
So as we all watch this sunset, thank you. Thank you for being amazing humans on an Earth that needs it.
I will stay here and watch the rays of this sunset fades and be grateful in my heart to everyone. And as the stars come out, I will probably cry.
So thank you!
I am going to watch a sunset, talk with you soon with the final details of MDY6!
Peace to the world, sunset awaits us all.
Hello everybody, As many may know Moving Difference has some roots in Texas. In fact, the entire idea for MD came from a little taco shop in Austin and many of the volunteers that help man MDY6’s web site and such come from all over Texas. And all of us from Beaumont, Houston, Austin, Rockport, Corpus Christi, Galveston, and even in Dallas & El Paso.
Well, you have probably read, seen or heard about the hurricane hitting Texas right now.
And yes there is a sizable amount of rain happening even in places in between. Basically Texas is just one big wet sponge!
So the decision was made last Friday to suspend our end of the MDY6 until at least September 5. Because everybody had to get other stuff done and look out for their families.
We will be back on September 5, perhaps a bit wet, but we will be back to it – counting your hours, answering your questions, and of course doing our own MDY6 projects.
If you can safely do your MDY6 project great, feel free to report your hours and we will get to them as soon as we are back.
If you can’t do your MDY6 project safely take a break and do it when it is safe. We understand, we are taking a break too!
Until we are back on September 5, remember to be kind to everyone and just do your best.
Be safe, stay strong! The rain can’t last forever…..
From the entire MDY6 crew
Moving Difference 