Acts of Random Kindness to You

It is one of the best and most emotional times of the year. I lost my dear grandmother at Christmas time and this year will be celebrating a 2nd year with my father in a nursing home at Christmas time. I have much that I am blessed with, but there certainly are things that make me sad.

I will be writing a Christmas post very soon and also have some new ideas for the coming New Year. Stay tuned and enjoy the days ahead.

I am a Special Educator and I love it. I love the kids and I love what I do. My kids have so many amazing capabilities. Once in awhile, they struggle with their behavior or a writing assignment, but otherwise they are typical high school age kids. I decided to do “ONE MORE YEAR” of summer school with them, so I am currently in the middle of that and although they are there for a variety of reasons, my reason for being there is the success of the kids.

Once we hit summer school, it is a new start. I don’t care that they failed during the regular school year or that they didn’t do a thing I asked them to all year. They get another chance now and that’s what we are there for; to do it together!

So, today a wonderful co-worker brought them a homemade treat. They loved it. It made me chuckle though that her children had wondered why she was bringing something to kids that had failed. I loved her explanation to them and I think it speaks volumes.
She told her children, “Have you ever failed at anything? When you fail is when I try the hardest to let you know that it’s o-kay to fail and that I will be there to help you get back up. We all fail! We all need someone to pick us back up and today that pick up for these students is this treat!”

We do all need people to pick us up when we fail. Failure is a part of life and often a time that I personally learn more than I learn from success. So, remember the next time you see someone fail that it may be you that gets them back on track. One act of kindness at a time, we can all change the world.

Wow. I can’t believe it has been so long since I last wrote here. I have no good excuse except that I am a slacker sometimes. I admit it. Yes, life has been busy, but not so busy that I couldn’t jot a few lines about kindness. I think it is often times the being busy that keeps us from being kind and noticing kindness in our lives. Enough about that, I have some kindness that I would like to spread to my readers. Below, I am going to list some sites and links that over the past few years have made me some real money. Although they are referral links, feel free to use them without the referral if you would rather. These are legitimate and fun sites. Once that have outlasted the others and a couple of new ones too. Interested? Read on and check out those that interest you!!

1.) Mypoints – An old standby. I can expect without doing any purchasing to get at least (3) $25 gift cards from here a year. They are reliable and the prizes come quick.

2.) Swagbucks – This is an amazing site. You can search and win Swagbucks that turn into gift cards, prizes, and now even paypal. I have earned several hundred dollars since December of 2008 for just searches and participating in contests. If you do ONE site, I would make it this one!!!

3.) Gather – A great Social Networking site. Although the prizes have slowed down somewhat, they are reliable and often have contests that allow you to win more points. Points become gift cards and now even paypal. You will meet some amazing people while winning some great prizes too.

4.) GSN – A fun game show site. This one is fairly new for me, but I cashed out for (2) $10 gift cards and received them almost immediately. So far, so good and a really fun site too. You win OODLES and turn them in for prizes. Great fun!

5.) Redgage - Another new site, but interesting in concept. It too is a social networking site, but you get paid for your content. It can be anything you have done. Blogs, posts on sites, articles…anything you want to share and the bigger your network…the more you make. Interested? If you want to use me as a referral, just type Cyclonewriter where it askes who sent you. If not, that’s fine but look me up so we can be friends!!

These would be my top 5. Got others? I would love to hear about them. Be sure to give me your referral link in case I am interested…Regardless of what you decide, just remember that kindness makes the world a better place !

Yes, that is right, we are covered in snow. I didn’t teach today as we had a snow day. I can barely believe in October that we had this much snow. It was at least a foot if not more. Along with snow came shoveling and plowing. I am lucky as my husband does all of the shoveling and my brother usually does the plowing. The problem today was that everything went wrong. Or at least it felt that way, but looking back on the day, it provided opportunities to be thankful.

My brother broke down and could not come help us out and that happened just as we got really stuck in the driveway and realized my husband’s 4 wheel drive was no longer working. So, here we are stuck with no plow and things just started to happen. A neighbor from up the road pulled over and told us he would be right back to pull us out. We didn’t even know him, but he stopped anyone. Thanks neighbor.

As I walked across the road to see if our other neighbors minded us parking in their driveway for a bit so we would not get stuck again, the husband met me at the door. Jokingly, he called me the “abominable snowman” and then explained he was on his way over to plow us out with his tractor. Thanks neighbor.

So, sure things went wrong and they are bound to, but in many ways, things went right ! We are blessed to have a community that still believes in neighborly gestures. My husband is on his way out the door with some cookies for these guys. One act of random kindness at a time can change the world !! Try it !

My husband just showed me a neat new website that is aimed at spreading a little Halloween cheer and friendliness. Who doesn’t need those things in their life?  Ghosting It Forward is just what it sounds like, you simply do something positive and start a hopeful chain reaction. The site has some great stories and ideas. The best part about the entire idea is that it costs so little and can make such a difference. I would love to hear about your “ghostly” activities, so stop back and tell me about them.

It is also a great way to get kids involved with some positive fun for Halloween. This could go in so many directions that I can’t wait to see what we can do with it here in our little town. So, what is stopping you? Let’s make the world a better place with one act of random kindess at a time.

I hope that all of you had a wonderful week. My week was busy as usual, but we did have a snow day which gave a much needed sleeping in time on Wednesday morning. It is the one good thing about our weather here in the Northern part of New York State.

The reality of life is that we all have to work. I am lucky as I love my job and that makes getting up in the morning a little easier. However, what I can’t understand is that when opportunities present themselves, why anyone would not want to make a place that they spend so much time a better place to be. After all, if I have to be there than it would be nice to enjoy it as much as I can.

Some people are naturally good at this and no matter what is going on in their lives, they always seem to want to spread kindness. Such is the case of one lady that teaches down the hall from me. For as long as I have worked at this building, her husband has been ill with Alzheimer’s. When she discovered that my family was struggling with the same thing, she offered any and all assistance, information, or even just an ear. Not a week has gone by that she hasn’t inquired about me or my parents whom she has never even met. She is simply by nature a good person with a very large heart.

This lady has lead by example both to her students and to other teachers. She doesn’t gossip and she goes about her day making the best of it. It makes those around her want to do the same. This week, I was concerned when I walked by her door because she looked a little down and out. After a brief discussion, it became apparent that her husband had declined rapidly recently and she was feeling sad. (Such is the case when living with a loved one that has Alzheimer’s)

On top of it, she had recently had a granddaughter born and was so thrilled, but certainly not as much as she could have been if her husband was well and able to share in it with the family. It wasn’t long after talking that things turned to my family as they so often do with her. She isn’t one to focus on herself. As we parted ways, it got me thinking that kindness in the workplace is something that is planted and will grow if we let it.

Today, I had flowers sent to this amazing coworker with a simple congratulations card attached to the new grandma. I know that it thrilled her. Certainly to spread kindness in the workplace, all acts don’t have to be something material, but they do have to be thoughtful and genuine. So, next week….see what you can do to make your job a better place to be. Be sure to come back and tell us how you are making the world better one act of random kindness at a time.

I don’t think I have mentioned in prior posts that I have the good fortune of working with children. However, even better than that is the fact that I don’t work with just any children, I work with high school age kids that have a few learning difficulties. This is an awesome job because they know what it means to struggle and often times, some of the toughest ones in the classroom are the kindest to the underdogs in the building. Let me share a couple of examples.

The other day we had a fire drill and as we headed down the three flights of stairs, I somehow got separated from a young lady that struggles with her vision. As the hundreds of students pushed down the stairwell, I was worried she was going to stumble. However, no sooner than I worried,  a young man also from my classroom did something amazing. This young man, turned around and handed the girl the back of his shirt. Slowly, her guided her down the rest of the stairs and out to the parking lot without incident. There he stood in the parking lot with this little bitty thing still holding tight to his shirt. He never asked her to let go or even indicated that he had done something so kind. He just stood there. I was so touched that I teared up.

Another incident several years ago still stays with me as well. I had this boy that was repeating his senior year and to put it mildly, he was the toughest case I had ever met. He had no parents, for all intents and purposes was homeless, but I knew he had something in him that nobody had gotten to yet. He became my mission that year. Throughout the year, somehow this boy began to care. Oh, he could still be a royal pain, but he started doing things like helping substitute teachers out when I was away or reading things to another student if I got busy across the room and they were struggling. He took kids under his wing that were overweight or that didn’t have friends and looked out for them in the cafeteria. In short, his heart began to shine. He graduated that year and people were amazed that he had made it.  I was amazed that nobody had noticed before what this young man was capable of being.

In short, don’t sell kids short in the game of kindness. They will engage in whatever is modeled for them. You don’t have to nag or preach to them, simply show them kindness and then stand back to watch the world become a better place for all of us.