My 29 Gifts Project...With Stories
I mentioned my 21 Days of Giving Projects yesterday and that I'd talk about it again soon and then someone emailed to say they were so anxious to hear that story. THEN I realized I had said 21 days and it's actually 29 days...leave it to me to mess up a detail.
So I thought I'd just go ahead and talk about that today. I like to start these projects on the very first day of a month...because then it's much easier to keep up with where you are ON the project.
Soooooooo here's the story of how I got started DOING the 29 Days of Giving...probably the most rewarding project...I've ever done...and I've done this 3 times now.
Most of you know...I'm a book fanatic...and I found this little book back in 2010 one day when I was just browsing amazon..."29 Days Of Giving: How A Month Of Giving Can Change Your Life"...by Cami Walker.
Now many of you...when you have some free time...you may like to run to Walmart or the mall....but I'm a real homebody and I'm not much on going places....I like leaving the canyon to be a treat..and not a daily/have to happening... I LOVE....just being home......So once in a while when I have some free time...I'll just browse on amazon because where many of you love nice clothes...I LOVE BOOKS on self help...natural healing/living...motivational/inspirational...I love the daily devotional books with stories....I love reading about people that try to live off the land and do things a more natural way....I LOVE LOVE LOVE studying the people of Hunza Land and the Blue Zone People....I'm just a little dry sponge...craving all the information I can find...on so many subjects...and soaking it up like my life depends on it.....
And I spotted this little thin book back in May of 2010 and clicked to read more about it...and I knew instantly I had to have it...It tells the story of a young wife who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis just a month after her wedding and she went into such a deep depression.
She had a neighbor, Mbali Creazzo...and Mbali is pronounced "em-BALL-ee"...and Mbali was an old spiritual medicine woman and she lived her life to help others. So she said to Cami..."Cami...You may be crippled and homebound NOW...but you can heal your own body of this MS and you can get out of YOUR depression and help others with the same ailment and even worse..." But Mbali said "Healing doesn't happen in a vacuum, but through your interactions with other people. By giving, you are focusing on what you have to offer others, inviting more abundance into your own life. Giving of any kind is taking action that begins the process of change. And it will shift your energy for life."
Well...Cami fell for Mbali's fast talk...and so did "I".... Mbali told Cami to buy a journal and keep a daily journal of her giving and to give 'something' to someone daily...and it could be as simple as a sincere compliment....someone needing a kleenex or cough drop...pie to a neighbor...a meal to a shut in...the sky is the limit...but she couldn't miss even one day and if she did...she had to start over on her 29 days of giving. SO, alone in our home with no one to talk to at that particular moment...I was goin'..."YES....YES.....YES...THIS PROJECT IS FOR MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!"
I've done this project 3 times now, since May of 2010....and one of my gifts...was just giving 15 minutes of my time to the elderly lady I told you about yesterday..that we ran into on the way to the races when we stopped at LOVE'S Truck Stop in Ina, Illinois....She had lost her purse and was on the road alone at about 88 yrs old...and my goodness...we solved her purse mystery and had just an absolutely heavenly conversation....
Now I would have helped her with the purse even if I hadn't heard of this project...but then I would have said..."Well nice to meet you...we're on the road too and I've gotta get going..the geezer is waiting at the Valkyrie" But I could tell she was rattled so we just talked....at length....about her life and the price of rice in China....:-) But do you know what?....I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT...beCAUSE I KNEW this was my gift for that day and I was giving my TIME to this lonely old lady...and I could just tell...it made her day to have someone to talk to....and it made my day too...
Thinking back on that old woman now....I'm thinking the outfit she had on that day...probably cost more than all the money we had ON us...for our trip for the whole weekend....She had on a little pill box hat with a little feather in it....and a long duster coat..and a dress under that...and jewelry out the wazoo....She just looked like a very rich...eccentric old woman who could go buy the moon and give it away and never miss the money.... :-) But do you know what? In spite of her seemingly comfy financial status...on that particular day...she was just a lonely old woman...needing someone to talk to for a bit.....
Another gift I gave was to our sewing lady....now she sews for us fairly often...if Billy gets new jeans she hems them....and she's made corn pillows for me many times just to have on hand in my giving station to give away...and other things...But she's really a recluse and very elderly and she loves to talk....so one day during my 29 days of giving...I just took her lunch on a Friday...it was fish day at Big Johns...and I got her 2 pieces of fish and 2 pcs of chicken and just dropped it back off...she wasn't sewing or mending anything for us at the time....and she was absolutely dumbfounded that I would DO such a thing....she said, "You mean you're just 'giving it to me' for no reason....well I'll declare...I never heard of such a thing." And she hugged and hugged me and said, "Well I can't even REMEMBER the last time anybody just GAVE me something and didn't want anything in return" Since that day in May of 2010....I've dropped her off a meal several times...just because....and she just gets so emotional....it's priceless.....and she's now coming...to our church :-) BE THE CHANGE...you want people to see in the world......ONE PERSON...CAN...MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE...
During my 3 times of doing the projects....I took flowers from our cottage garden to a lady at church that doesn't get out much...
And I took a big bouquet to church and put it in front of the pulpit...to 'gift' everybody there one Sunday....
I sent a card to someone I hadn't seen in years .. just to touch bases and say "hi"...I gave sincere compliments....
I sent a stack of Encouragers to someone that's a shut in and lives far away.......
Most days were easy....but being a real stay at home..homebody myself...some days I was really sweating my 'gift' for the day when supper time came and I hadn't come in contact with anyone just yet....or hadn't thought of anything to DO.....but I always made it.....BeCAUSE one of the other things you can do....is just CALL someone that you don't normally talk to..just to say "Hi..I haven't seen you in a while and you were on my mind...How ya doin'?"...or write a letter or send a card to someone across the miles...
One of the things I did...that rewarded me with a huge re-gifting from that person....was to buy an extra copy of this book on amazon for pennies....and I put together a small gift bag with the book and a candle and a couple other little sweet things and tied a mood ring in the bow on the bag handle and added my little doilie friendship angel.....and I put that little bag out on our trash can ..for the trash man to find.. with a note to give that to his wife.....I explained in the note that I was doing a 29 days of giving project...and I hoped she didn't mind...but my gift that day...was this gift bag for HER....
The very next week...we were setting on the porch and the trash man pulled up and came up on the porch and he had this long letter from his wife to me....In this letter...she said, she was so overcome with emotion when she got her gift bag and she sat down and read the whole book that evening and SHE was now in the middle of doing the project herself and HER gift that day...was her letter to ME :-) Now our trash man...comes all the way down here to Massac County...from Johnston City Illinois....so THAT particular 'gift' made me think of the "Smiling Virus" poem...which says: "I thought about that 'gift to her' and realized it's worth...a gift that's given...just like this...could travel round the earth"
Other little things I did: I also let people in front of me in line at the grocery....and I helped an old woman find her car in the Walmart parking lot...
I helped an old man that was on the phone with his wife in the grocery...trying to find an item...so I could tell he didn't understand what she was wanting or from where in the store...so I said, "Excuse me...I think I can help...tell me exactly what it is your wife is needing and I can probably lead you right to it."
And I was in line at the Dollar General and a little girl got in line behind me and she had one little plastic toy horn....I knew she had a twin sister...so I said, "Oopsie Daisie...one horn...two sisters....I feel a fight coming on" She giggled and I said, "Did they only have one horn?" She said "No they had lots of them...but I only have ONE dollar." So I said, "Well you give me that one and I'll have the cashier ring up 2 of them and then you AND you sister will have one and you won't need to fight. PLUS you can get your heads together and put on a concert tonight...for your mom!" She said, "REALLY?" :-) And she ran and got another one...and as we were going out....she kept saying "Thank you....Thank you...." as she ran across the field to the apartment complex. :-)
For one of my gifts...I wrote a nice letter to Hanna The Hoarder and told her I would be keeping in touch with her and I'd be sending her some homemade goodies at Christmas time.....
I made chili for a family that we were helping at church and dropped that off......
I donated 10 pkgs of Instant Potatoes to "Meals In A Bag" and that was 10 bags with the fixins' for 10 complete meals of Salmon Patties, Peas, Corn...and I added the potatoes......
I gave a bag of dishpan cookies and a dollar bill to each of 2 little brothers that were having a yard sale Kim and I passed...and they didn't seem to be having any customers....so we stopped and gave them cookies that we had just bought at a church bake sale...and we told them we were yard sale judges and they had won the dollar for best yard sale of the weekend...they fell for that story hook line and sinker and they'll be telling THEIR grandkids, "Wy your old grandpa and Uncle Jeff even won best yard sale of the weekend once....got a whole dollar each and that was a LOT of MONEY....back in THOSE days" :-)
I stopped and bought lemonade from 3 little girls running a Lemonade stand on East 8th Street...I was going to give them a big tip for my 'gift'...but their doggone LEMONADE was ONE DOLLAR... :-0 So my gift THAT day....was just going ahead and BUYING the lemonade after I found out how EXPENSIVE it was AND not spanking their little rear ends...for ripping off the public...at 8 years OLD....
I donated heavy socks and gloves and sock caps to Michele Weber Thomas's homeless drive for winter supplies.........
I contacted a reader that really sends me a lot of hateful emails.....and told her I'd like to just be friends....negative comments are ok...but no more hate mail and let's be friends...She fired me back an email...turning the air blue wanting to know why I wanted to be HER friend...when SHE HATED ME. :-( We emailed back and forth for about a day and a half...and finally ended up talking about just every day stuff.....so I 'think' I made a friend out of an enemy....that hopefully...was a gift to both of us....
I bought my own treats to give to Kim's Parkview Kids Club....she was making them special treat bags for Halloween....so I donated tiny coloring books and pencils and a few things like that.....
I took Billy out for fried oysters and I paid...we went down to Lacy's..in Benton, Ky and we just had a super DUPER evening........
I stopped and talked to a young man...possibly in his 30's...that's probably mentally challenged and he sets on a particular bench all the time...with his minnow bucket and fishing poles...and I've passed him 1,000 times and never even said "Hi"...but on that day I stopped and talked to him about his fishing and how long he's been fishing....he was quiet and bashful but told me a story or two :-) Kim said later when I told HER about him...that he would probably have much rather I had come back with a hot deli MEAL for my gift to him....AND I WOULD have...but I just didn't think to DO that......She said she has actually photographed him when she was taking pics down at the river one evening to get some beautiful sunsets.... and he's in her facebook photo files..........
Oh I could just go on and on.....I did mostly very small things...but I did some bigger things too...as you saw above.....
The thing that I loved the most about this last project of 29 days of giving...was that I realized that doing little acts of kindness has become just 2nd nature for me....and that 'realization'...even surprised ME.....It would be getting towards supper time and I'd think "OH my GOODNESS...it's 5 o'clock and I've got to GIVE something to someone..." THEN I'd realize....I had helped the old lady at Walmart find her car....and gave 26 cents to another old lady ahead of me in the express lane before I even came OUT...that was fumbling in her purse saying..."I KNOW I've got a quarter in here SOMEwhere" :-) So I found myself often...doing little 'gift helps' without realizing it was my gift for the day....PRICELESS!!!
It's really tons of fun to do this project....Some days I'd get a little antsy when it would be late in the day and I hadn't been out of the house....but I always came up with something for 'someone'......
Below...is a pic of a batch of my little handmade angels....and one style of gift bag I LOVE to do....and I keep these things on hand to be ready to make one at a moments notice.....the little angels are homemade by me and the brown bags come from Hobby Lobby....the little doilies are the angels wings.....Each one has a little note about being a friendship or guardian angel.....I LOVE making these little angels......
If I'm walking fairly good by the end of November...I'm going to do this project again from December 1 to 29th....I sure hope you'll join me. You really don't have to spend ANY money at all...I just like to give meals and cookies and this and that on occasion...but most 'gifts' don't cost a dime...just a little 'time' :-)
Ok...that's it for today.....Peace and Love from the canyon....thanks so much for stopping by....and I love you all gobs...
This has been a bird's eye view of the katydid...until next time...you are loved.....
She had a neighbor, Mbali Creazzo...and Mbali is pronounced "em-BALL-ee"...and Mbali was an old spiritual medicine woman and she lived her life to help others. So she said to Cami..."Cami...You may be crippled and homebound NOW...but you can heal your own body of this MS and you can get out of YOUR depression and help others with the same ailment and even worse..." But Mbali said "Healing doesn't happen in a vacuum, but through your interactions with other people. By giving, you are focusing on what you have to offer others, inviting more abundance into your own life. Giving of any kind is taking action that begins the process of change. And it will shift your energy for life."
Well...Cami fell for Mbali's fast talk...and so did "I".... Mbali told Cami to buy a journal and keep a daily journal of her giving and to give 'something' to someone daily...and it could be as simple as a sincere compliment....someone needing a kleenex or cough drop...pie to a neighbor...a meal to a shut in...the sky is the limit...but she couldn't miss even one day and if she did...she had to start over on her 29 days of giving. SO, alone in our home with no one to talk to at that particular moment...I was goin'..."YES....YES.....YES...THIS PROJECT IS FOR MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!"
I've done this project 3 times now, since May of 2010....and one of my gifts...was just giving 15 minutes of my time to the elderly lady I told you about yesterday..that we ran into on the way to the races when we stopped at LOVE'S Truck Stop in Ina, Illinois....She had lost her purse and was on the road alone at about 88 yrs old...and my goodness...we solved her purse mystery and had just an absolutely heavenly conversation....
Now I would have helped her with the purse even if I hadn't heard of this project...but then I would have said..."Well nice to meet you...we're on the road too and I've gotta get going..the geezer is waiting at the Valkyrie" But I could tell she was rattled so we just talked....at length....about her life and the price of rice in China....:-) But do you know what?....I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT...beCAUSE I KNEW this was my gift for that day and I was giving my TIME to this lonely old lady...and I could just tell...it made her day to have someone to talk to....and it made my day too...
Thinking back on that old woman now....I'm thinking the outfit she had on that day...probably cost more than all the money we had ON us...for our trip for the whole weekend....She had on a little pill box hat with a little feather in it....and a long duster coat..and a dress under that...and jewelry out the wazoo....She just looked like a very rich...eccentric old woman who could go buy the moon and give it away and never miss the money.... :-) But do you know what? In spite of her seemingly comfy financial status...on that particular day...she was just a lonely old woman...needing someone to talk to for a bit.....
Another gift I gave was to our sewing lady....now she sews for us fairly often...if Billy gets new jeans she hems them....and she's made corn pillows for me many times just to have on hand in my giving station to give away...and other things...But she's really a recluse and very elderly and she loves to talk....so one day during my 29 days of giving...I just took her lunch on a Friday...it was fish day at Big Johns...and I got her 2 pieces of fish and 2 pcs of chicken and just dropped it back off...she wasn't sewing or mending anything for us at the time....and she was absolutely dumbfounded that I would DO such a thing....she said, "You mean you're just 'giving it to me' for no reason....well I'll declare...I never heard of such a thing." And she hugged and hugged me and said, "Well I can't even REMEMBER the last time anybody just GAVE me something and didn't want anything in return" Since that day in May of 2010....I've dropped her off a meal several times...just because....and she just gets so emotional....it's priceless.....and she's now coming...to our church :-) BE THE CHANGE...you want people to see in the world......ONE PERSON...CAN...MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE...
During my 3 times of doing the projects....I took flowers from our cottage garden to a lady at church that doesn't get out much...
And I took a big bouquet to church and put it in front of the pulpit...to 'gift' everybody there one Sunday....
I sent a card to someone I hadn't seen in years .. just to touch bases and say "hi"...I gave sincere compliments....
I sent a stack of Encouragers to someone that's a shut in and lives far away.......
Most days were easy....but being a real stay at home..homebody myself...some days I was really sweating my 'gift' for the day when supper time came and I hadn't come in contact with anyone just yet....or hadn't thought of anything to DO.....but I always made it.....BeCAUSE one of the other things you can do....is just CALL someone that you don't normally talk to..just to say "Hi..I haven't seen you in a while and you were on my mind...How ya doin'?"...or write a letter or send a card to someone across the miles...
One of the things I did...that rewarded me with a huge re-gifting from that person....was to buy an extra copy of this book on amazon for pennies....and I put together a small gift bag with the book and a candle and a couple other little sweet things and tied a mood ring in the bow on the bag handle and added my little doilie friendship angel.....and I put that little bag out on our trash can ..for the trash man to find.. with a note to give that to his wife.....I explained in the note that I was doing a 29 days of giving project...and I hoped she didn't mind...but my gift that day...was this gift bag for HER....
The very next week...we were setting on the porch and the trash man pulled up and came up on the porch and he had this long letter from his wife to me....In this letter...she said, she was so overcome with emotion when she got her gift bag and she sat down and read the whole book that evening and SHE was now in the middle of doing the project herself and HER gift that day...was her letter to ME :-) Now our trash man...comes all the way down here to Massac County...from Johnston City Illinois....so THAT particular 'gift' made me think of the "Smiling Virus" poem...which says: "I thought about that 'gift to her' and realized it's worth...a gift that's given...just like this...could travel round the earth"
Other little things I did: I also let people in front of me in line at the grocery....and I helped an old woman find her car in the Walmart parking lot...
I helped an old man that was on the phone with his wife in the grocery...trying to find an item...so I could tell he didn't understand what she was wanting or from where in the store...so I said, "Excuse me...I think I can help...tell me exactly what it is your wife is needing and I can probably lead you right to it."
And I was in line at the Dollar General and a little girl got in line behind me and she had one little plastic toy horn....I knew she had a twin sister...so I said, "Oopsie Daisie...one horn...two sisters....I feel a fight coming on" She giggled and I said, "Did they only have one horn?" She said "No they had lots of them...but I only have ONE dollar." So I said, "Well you give me that one and I'll have the cashier ring up 2 of them and then you AND you sister will have one and you won't need to fight. PLUS you can get your heads together and put on a concert tonight...for your mom!" She said, "REALLY?" :-) And she ran and got another one...and as we were going out....she kept saying "Thank you....Thank you...." as she ran across the field to the apartment complex. :-)
For one of my gifts...I wrote a nice letter to Hanna The Hoarder and told her I would be keeping in touch with her and I'd be sending her some homemade goodies at Christmas time.....
I made chili for a family that we were helping at church and dropped that off......
I donated 10 pkgs of Instant Potatoes to "Meals In A Bag" and that was 10 bags with the fixins' for 10 complete meals of Salmon Patties, Peas, Corn...and I added the potatoes......
I gave a bag of dishpan cookies and a dollar bill to each of 2 little brothers that were having a yard sale Kim and I passed...and they didn't seem to be having any customers....so we stopped and gave them cookies that we had just bought at a church bake sale...and we told them we were yard sale judges and they had won the dollar for best yard sale of the weekend...they fell for that story hook line and sinker and they'll be telling THEIR grandkids, "Wy your old grandpa and Uncle Jeff even won best yard sale of the weekend once....got a whole dollar each and that was a LOT of MONEY....back in THOSE days" :-)
I stopped and bought lemonade from 3 little girls running a Lemonade stand on East 8th Street...I was going to give them a big tip for my 'gift'...but their doggone LEMONADE was ONE DOLLAR... :-0 So my gift THAT day....was just going ahead and BUYING the lemonade after I found out how EXPENSIVE it was AND not spanking their little rear ends...for ripping off the public...at 8 years OLD....
I donated heavy socks and gloves and sock caps to Michele Weber Thomas's homeless drive for winter supplies.........
I contacted a reader that really sends me a lot of hateful emails.....and told her I'd like to just be friends....negative comments are ok...but no more hate mail and let's be friends...She fired me back an email...turning the air blue wanting to know why I wanted to be HER friend...when SHE HATED ME. :-( We emailed back and forth for about a day and a half...and finally ended up talking about just every day stuff.....so I 'think' I made a friend out of an enemy....that hopefully...was a gift to both of us....
I bought my own treats to give to Kim's Parkview Kids Club....she was making them special treat bags for Halloween....so I donated tiny coloring books and pencils and a few things like that.....
I took Billy out for fried oysters and I paid...we went down to Lacy's..in Benton, Ky and we just had a super DUPER evening........
I stopped and talked to a young man...possibly in his 30's...that's probably mentally challenged and he sets on a particular bench all the time...with his minnow bucket and fishing poles...and I've passed him 1,000 times and never even said "Hi"...but on that day I stopped and talked to him about his fishing and how long he's been fishing....he was quiet and bashful but told me a story or two :-) Kim said later when I told HER about him...that he would probably have much rather I had come back with a hot deli MEAL for my gift to him....AND I WOULD have...but I just didn't think to DO that......She said she has actually photographed him when she was taking pics down at the river one evening to get some beautiful sunsets.... and he's in her facebook photo files..........
Oh I could just go on and on.....I did mostly very small things...but I did some bigger things too...as you saw above.....
The thing that I loved the most about this last project of 29 days of giving...was that I realized that doing little acts of kindness has become just 2nd nature for me....and that 'realization'...even surprised ME.....It would be getting towards supper time and I'd think "OH my GOODNESS...it's 5 o'clock and I've got to GIVE something to someone..." THEN I'd realize....I had helped the old lady at Walmart find her car....and gave 26 cents to another old lady ahead of me in the express lane before I even came OUT...that was fumbling in her purse saying..."I KNOW I've got a quarter in here SOMEwhere" :-) So I found myself often...doing little 'gift helps' without realizing it was my gift for the day....PRICELESS!!!
It's really tons of fun to do this project....Some days I'd get a little antsy when it would be late in the day and I hadn't been out of the house....but I always came up with something for 'someone'......
Below...is a pic of a batch of my little handmade angels....and one style of gift bag I LOVE to do....and I keep these things on hand to be ready to make one at a moments notice.....the little angels are homemade by me and the brown bags come from Hobby Lobby....the little doilies are the angels wings.....Each one has a little note about being a friendship or guardian angel.....I LOVE making these little angels......
If I'm walking fairly good by the end of November...I'm going to do this project again from December 1 to 29th....I sure hope you'll join me. You really don't have to spend ANY money at all...I just like to give meals and cookies and this and that on occasion...but most 'gifts' don't cost a dime...just a little 'time' :-)
Ok...that's it for today.....Peace and Love from the canyon....thanks so much for stopping by....and I love you all gobs...
This has been a bird's eye view of the katydid...until next time...you are loved.....
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