Emails and life

This past five days have been a whirlwind for me. A good friend lost her mom, there has been tons of emails about Moving Difference achievements and then there has been the real life of violence here in the United States and even in other parts of the world.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, most of us are struggling to pay the bills, to be healthy, to have a job that we enjoy or at least can work at with expectations of decent wage. It is life.

It is hard to balance in the mind such small short things with such great loss of life daily. I haven’t been able to sit down at this computer and put my thoughts on paper because I don’t know how to in moments, followed by moments of complete anger and pain at the world, followed by moments of sadness for all.

There is no one answer to all the problems in the world. Sadly love and peace isn’t an answer just like war and anger isn’t an answer.  It is back to balance of everything. We can’t be a great world if we can’t respect each other and live in harmony. It isn’t us vs. them, cause we are all one people. Always.

So what do we do? We keep going  forward, we know our neighbors, we reach out to our fellow humans and we make an impact. We keep moving forward toward equality, towards a peaceful existence, towards a better future for all.

In that spirit, I ask that you think about doing an extra hour of Moving Difference this summer with a human touch. Meet your neighbors, talk to the mail person, strike up a conversation with a complete stranger, listen, connect, reply and more than anything acknowledge people. Don’t let fear rule the day, simply say hi, smile, or stop and said something nice. You might get a reply and you might not, but you aren’t doing it for a reply, you are doing to for the world and that is bigger than both of us.

I am off to do my extra hour right now, holding a sign on the busy corner I know, it simply says “Have a great Tuesday!!”

BTW – you are amazing people, all of you, MDY5 hit over 250k in completed hours on Sunday. Thanks!

 

 

 

The sweet spot

I shared with you a tale of two different cities. One here in the US and one oversea in France. It isn’t Shakespeare and it is how you might look at the world differently and apply it to your Moving Difference project.

Starting with:

The City in the US.

Last week, my friend treated his office to ice cream. Yup, the scoop out of the quart kind, chocolate strawberry and vanila. It was a surprise in the office as most offices don’t do anything for their employees over the summer or anytime. Many in his office was suspect of his generous actions. Corporate culture isn’t set up for one human to just be nice to fellow co-workers. However for this office it was a success after the inital skepticism!

The fact that ice cream was such a hit at the office showed two things: one we are all eight years old when it comes to summer and ice cream and two kindness actions can come in melting scoopable format.

Doing something like treating the office to ice cream doesn’t seem like a lot, but it is. It is actually a moving difference because you are doing something for others without expectations of getting something back or payment for it. You are giving, you are making a difference and lowering the stress level, you are scooping ice cream and talking, you are being a moving difference.

The City in France

It has been rainy and damp all last week, the ice cream idea got scrapt because of it.. These two friends instead decided to buy all the individual “decent” french cookies they could find for 200 Euro. Putting a label on each one that said “Je Vous Remercie d’etre vous”  (Thank you for being you). And then armed with bags full of these cookies, they wandered the streets of Paris handing out cookies. At first, they didn’t get many takers, French are suspect just like Americans. They were ignored, questioned and even told what they were doing was illegal by a shopkeeper (it isn’t BTW). But slowly over the day, their bag of cookies got smaller. Bus stops and parks were the best place to get rid of cookies they figured out. It was a learning experience for them as French humans because they never thought it would be a problem to give out cookies to fellow French humans!

Their detailed email explains how hard they tried to give cookies away and failed until they realized the problem wasn’t them or their cookies, it was the simple fact that even their fellow country people don’t understand how to accept a random kind act.

THE END?

These tales of two cities are happening everyday, all over the world. Your home and mine, even our neighbors. We can’t live in a world where ice cream and cookies are suspects!!! What  would Cookie Monster say? Come on people…. we can change this, so us, the crazy motley crew at MDY5, is doing something about it. We are encouraging everybody to share some kind ice cream with your neighbors on July 17 – ironically – Ice Cream Day! We will be doing with our families as well, our plans are big. We are going to the homeless shelters, the parks and the neighbors. We are going everywhere we can think of that ice cream and cookies are needed. So join us, buy a few quarts and share the love, make a few dozen cookies and give them to people – just thank them for being them and walk away. What a world we could live in if giving ice cream and cookies could solve most of the world’s problems?

What a wonderful world it would be.

We can make it happen.

And we even have our theme song – thank you Mr. Armstrong!

What a Wonderful World.

 

 

 

 

Grateful heart

Last week I had the honor and the privilege of working with some wonderful young adults in Toronto.

These youthful people were residents of a local at-risk homeless youth center and I was invited to speak at one of their “Life Skills” workshops.

It isn’t an easy world to be homeless and under 18 on the street. You grow up fast but not for the right reasons. Sometimes it is drugs, alcohol, trouble at school, abuse and thousands of other bad reasons, that kids end up on the street. They ran away, because they don’t have anywhere else to go, and the street for a night doesn’t seem bad for one night compared to whatever is happening at home. One night turns into days even years and tough decisions about things even us as adults don’t face in our daily lives.

These young people are overcoming their personal situations and being part of their own solution. These life skills vary from cooking, to balancing and budgeting, to college education, to learn laundry tricks, to interview skills, to having a fair fight and everything in-between.

I talked about having a grateful heart. Bad stuff happens even to terrific wonderful people, even to people that deserve it. But bad stuff doesn’t define you as a human being, it is an action, yes, it is a label on a human being, yes but it is not a human being.

In talking with these young people, I gave them an assignment, to be grateful forward. Yup. To thank ahead to people and places that they see everyday that is helping stop what happened to them. To write a simple email or note thanking someone for making a difference in someone’s else live so they don’t have to go thru bad stuff as bad. To thank with a full and grateful heart to someone that they didn’t know personally or at all.

There  were a few complaints about how tough that was going to be. And grumbles about how they will not make them grateful to thank a stranger. Although that happened something else happened, these young people sat down and wrote very passionate letters to people that were making a difference in their community to stop the bad things that happened to them. Many of these young people received replies back thanking them for sending such a note, many asked these young people to come by and volunteer or have a cuppa with them. I too have received emails of updates from these young people since speaking with them. I am happy to say that all of them are working on some project or idea now to help make a difference. It is amazing to think what doors might open, if we are grateful in our hearts.

Being grateful is a muscle, a wise friend told me once, you have to use it or lose it.

With a very grateful and full heart, I thank you both now and forward for all of your efforts in this life to help make other lives happier.

In peace.

 

 

 

 

 

Fourth of July!

For most of the world, Fourth of July is just a Monday.  Another Monday of this hot long summer. A Monday.

Some people in America celebrate Fourth of July with a BBQ and backyard picnics, some travel with friends and relatives, some travel by themselves, some still have to go to work and pay the bills like the rest of the world.

Happy Fourth of July – even if it is a boring Monday morning!!

Second Saturday

It is the second Saturday of MDY5 and things are clipping along. Things are more than great, awesome is an understatement.

And it is all because of wonderful people like yourselves taking an hour and ding something good for someone else. It is quite a gift as time is precious.

It is nice to see that good with all the bad that is happening in the world, that people are making the difference to overcome, to be the good.

Walking a family dog for a cancer patient, or cleaning the tub for an elderly person or cleaning out your closet to give to the local charity store doesn’t seem life changing and news worthy but it is because you are doing it.

It would be nice to see the New York Times headlines said Nothing bad to report today but we have these projects that need some people to come and help at. Thanks!

But we don’t live in that world, we haven’t for a long time. I will hope for it though, and maybe we will some day. After all,7.5 billion people should be able to figure this out.

Keep plugging away at your hour a week, we will be here for you all summer if you need ideas and of course to report your hours too! (Quick note on that: if you are reporting your hours, please put “Reporting Hours” in the subject line and please give a detailed description of what you did and how many hours so we can log it properly. Thanks!)

You are amazing and wonderful people keep up the good work!!!

 

Throwback Thursday

For the fun of it – I picked a post from the past – It is amazing how in five years how many roads we have travelled together. It is also equally amazing how many roads ahead.

And yes, after reading this, I am making some treats and giving them away!!

This post was first published on August 13, 2013. Enjoy!

https://movingdifference.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/sometimes-the-coolness-thing-happens/

Sometimes the coolness thing happens

Everybody should check out Ann’s website

http://cookingdangerously.com/?p=846

There is something really special on that link and I would say more BUT

I am busy making cookies (you will understand if you click the link)…..

I am making some cookies for the local fire station and for the at-risk youth center,

I will be dropping them off with a note that

simply says “These cookies were made for you in loving memory of Wendy Babcock – Thanks!”

I hope that you make some cookies as well this weekend….

Catch you down the road….

Pink Flamingo Day

Welcome to Wednesday – self declared Pink Flamingo Day.

We are loving life and love the emails and love MDY5!

We are all just pink flamingoes on the lawn of life!!

 

Happy Wednesday Everybody!!!

Tuesday happiness!

One of the best things in my life is my partner in life, his name is M and he is a handful and then some. Mr. M is quite silly and quite serious in the same moment when he has to be but mostly he is silly. He is the love of my life and always will be, even thousands of years from now.

Today when meeting to have lunch with him, we were talking about our big volunteer project that our family does every year. We pick a community non-profit and then we invited everybody under the sun to come and do it with us. This year we picked a food bank, a three hour shift, a date and reserved 250 spots for volunteers.

He thought we reserve 60 spots, when I reminded him it was 250, his reply was “That’s all? ok I will go with that.” Again being silly, then he proceed to tell me a pile of bad dog jokes that he just read. Never missing a beat, just beating onward as one.

I am so lucky that he is okay with me being me, having big plans and dreams, the impossible tasks and there for the tears of defeat too. He is my everything all the time and the kisses he dotes on me are amazing, too.

What is the take-away? Do what you love and if you can do it with who you love and who loves you. Life is extremely short. It is simply Tuesday Happiness.

P.S. for those of you wondering where the hours total might be. Well, MDY5 is one week old and 104,558 hours towards its goal… another Tuesday Happiness.

 

 

Best of intentions

I had the best of intentions to write a fresh blog post about some of the Moving Difference happenings of the weekend however I got slammed with other life things and the to do list is also out of control, I am hot, tired and I am pretty sure that I have lost my sense of humor and smell.

So if you are wondering where today’s post is, I ask you kindly to come back tomorrow.

It should be here right after laundry, other errands and work, but it will be here.

Until then keep it between the ditches… be safe… do good work and know that the world thanks you even on Mondays!

 

The Common Question-Weekend Edition

Quick note – On the weekends – we are just going to post once because most of you happy people are out doing your hour and then some making the world a better place. (And it is better to have you out there doing your hour than reading a silly post that you can read at work on Monday!)

On a daily basis, the common question of why to do Moving Difference comes up. Basically it is a two parts – why are we doing it and why should you do it.

To answer the first part of why we do it – for us, it is simple. Moving Difference is one of the many ways that we give back to the world. We can’t afford to cut a check to every worthy charity on earth, we can’t help every worthy cause in the world. We can’t do this by ourselves. We struggled for years to attempt to try to do it all and we still struggle in this attempt. We are humans after all. Moving Difference allows us the opportunity to give back in a greater sense of it all, as in we all are giving back together. United to making an impact and striving forward in many areas to making a moving difference. Plus we do our own MDY hours outside of working on Moving Difference. We have cleaned parks, walked dogs, worked at a food bank, amongst the thousand of other things. We are happy to do it and love doing it, it is our passion.

To answer the second part of why you should do it. Well, we have heard lots of good reasons and a few reasons of “Mom & Dad are making us” but all in all it is a personal reason to give back that fuels it. Moving Difference doesn’t exist with you, period. By doing Moving Difference and doing your hour a week over the summer, well, it is back to the simple reasoning that you too can’t afford to help every worthy charity and cause in the world, no one human can, but a bunch of us can together. The world is a very small place and life is very short, so your reasons to do Moving Difference might overlap with someone’s else or might not. That doesn’t matter, what matters is that you do something that gives back to your community, your neighborhood, our world. Doing is the key, you doing whatever your heart’s desire to help give back, well, welcome to being a part of Moving Difference.

Remember there is always free cheese in a mousetrap, good luck with your Moving Difference hours this weekend, see you on Monday!