K is for Kindness :-)

[Malinda Neisess]

Hello Friends!
Florabelle and I are feeling so very rejuvenated this morning and have been overwhelmed with a desire to go out and bless this beautiful sweet kind and loving world with more beautiful sweet loving kindness!
I was in a meeting all day yesterday and my boss who is such a sweetie pie and friend gave each of her executive staff 5 large coins. We were instructed to keep them with us each day in our pocket, the right pocket, and to switch one over every time we said something nice or gave a positive affirmation to someone else and that hopefully we would have each of our coins in our left pocket by the end of the day. :-) This was no big deal for me because I find it very natural to edify and encourage others all the time but how blessed I was to see her instigating such a thing.
Then last night I was watching television with my son and the most awesome commercial came on! I believe it was an insurance commercial of all things, mutal of omaha??? not sure, but it was beautiful! It starts with a typical scene in the everyday world and someone does something very simple to help someone, comes to their aid, and someone is watching this and then the next scene that someone that was watching does a good deed, act of kindness and someone else is watching and then that someone goes on and on until the last event is someone that had watched an act of kindness reaches out to help someone and actually saves their life!!!
I cried when I saw this! I said to my son "that is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!" and the beauty of it is that he agreed and told me about another one just like it with other scenarios...
What a brilliant piece of film! I could spend hours watching stuff like that, a whole movie of it would be great!
Anyway, no wonder I woke up this mornign thinking on Kindness and when looking for a picture to post I immediately began searching the web for "Random Acts of Kindness" as I knew I would find many resources of visual materials to post.
I am not suggesting anyone go and buy the book above, however, it has my curiosity aroused :-) and I might but I am suggesting that each of you google "kindness" and "random acts of kindness" because when I did this morning I could have spent hours reading all the different web site material! There are so many juicy stories, projects for home family and community going on out there promoting these random acts of kindness, it does a heart good to see it!
Florabelle and I would love to hear your own stories and experiences of kindnesses done for you, by you, in front of you, etc.
We beleive we know all of you well enough to know that you will each have beautiful stories to share of your own acts of kindness to others and the beautiful part of it all is letting us hear how it blessed you! I know that any of my acts of kindness have been a huge blessing to me and that is the part that brings rejuvenation!
Well, I must hurry off to work, to move some coins around and can't wait to get back to Florabelle's to be rejuvenated by your stories.
Florabelle will be here and I hear she's putting some cider on the stove...:-) have fun!

[Mary Hicks]

Ha! Barb, this really resonates with me! Soon after my mom died, before I came back home, my dad asked me one night if I'd be willing to cut his toenails. Well, what did I have to lose...except just a hint of respect for my dad and his "neatnick" ways. OMG, it was horrible. But the next morning he said, "I feel like I've got new feet!"

So I know it's important that I get him back home so that I can trim his toenails for him!!! I leave Tuesday on the train to Albany, then my dad and I will drive from Saratoga Springs to Denver on Thursday p.m. or Friday a.m. We should be back by the 30th of August. I'll fly back home on Aug. 14th late at night...

I just hope I have a computer available once or twice while I'm away! I'm really gonna miss you guys...

Must do laundry. Must pack. What to pack? It's so hot! What to pack? Don't forget meds, Mary!!

[Mary Hicks]

Barb, would you have time before I leave to trim my toenails for me? It would be so Kind of you...

[Malinda Neisess]

AND I LOVE YOUR GRANDPA TOO DABS! :-) What a beautiful heritage you have!
Hearing about such people as these, makes me so wish I could meet them and spend time with them and get to know them. You will have to share more stories of your adorable family with us Camille!

[Malinda Neisess]

I LOVE YOUR GRANNY! I am laughing out loud with misty eyes, at her flambouyance!
No wonder you are so very special Dabs!!!

My Grandmama, was my mother's mother. Her name was Clara Elizabeth Mears. I have never met my father. My grandmother had 1 brother who is still alive and 2 sisters, one is still alive and he and she are living back east in S. Carolina, Virgiana???
My mother just went and visited them a couple of weeks ago and had a wonderful time!

I have one picture of my grandmother on the computer I will post, it is actually a painting of a picture that she liked and it was painted by one of her sisters or sister in law???

food memories about my grandmama;
she is the one that got me started on my terrible ice addiction! She had this awesome mechanical device that would crunch up ice and we would eat it all the time!
she always put canned milk on my jello which was yummy! she made the most awesome jello salads
and when i was very young, before school age, i remember when i'd get to spend the night at her house, i loved getting up in the mornings and she would be in the kitchen and i would sit on the floor in front of the refrigerator where the most wonderful warm whispering air would blow out all over me and then she would serve me a pimento cheese and toast sandwhich !!! to this day, I LOVE pimento cheese
as for profound statements, I remember 2

"Good intentions half done, good intentions none"
and then this one :-)
"Damned if you do and damned if you don't"
which I thought was very naughty of her :-)

and she always called me "Millie"

ahhh...memories

thanks again Dabs!

[Camille]

Yes, Malindano,no.. I mean FloraMillie! Why is it that we associate Grandma memories with food??? LOL! Y our Granny's portrait show a proud, powerful sage!!! How special to have an artist's rendering of your Granny of the pimento cheese sandwiches!!! : )

Those jello recipes are a totally new concept for me...except for ambrosia jello desserts...I thougnt it was only Jello PUDDING that got the yummy milk poured all over it...teehee!
Did your gram put any flavoring into the crushed ice?
Was that pimento cheese the kind put out by Kraft, packaged in those little jars people recycled into juice glasses??? Did you get to eat a lot of Velveeta food too?

And you have not been to Icyholics Anonymous yet!!! Naughty, just like your Grams was!!!! : )

"Good intentions half done, good intentions none"

That is a saying that I have never heard before and it did give me pause to think about what it meant...I get it now...and I will remember it, in honor of your grammy!!!

Hugs from Dab

[Barbara Ann Storrier]

Well that portrait artist, whoever she may be, captured personality for sure. It seems to me, since you posted it here as representative of your granadmama, she must have nailed it, Malinda!

Humorous Wisdom is what I am seeing in this ... is it an oil painting?

Methinks your current mission, should you decide to accept it, is to ask your Mother ... WHERE it is exactly that these people live ... and, if possible, put your work and your husband and kids on hold and ... GO ... visit this brother and sister of your lovely Grandmama before they leave the planet.

Or at least visit with them via telephone ...

if i had to do it all over again, that's what i would do.

"Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got, 'til it's gone"

They paved Paradise and put up a Parking Lot.

[Malinda Neisess]

Somebody wants to go to a concert! :-)
yes it is an oil painting
and the brother, my mom's uncle Russell and I used to keep in touch via emails until one day i got an email from him a few years ago and he said it would be his last because his son was already having to help him as his vision was so poor he just could not read the computer any more nore find the keys to type :-(

he used to visit my grandmother every morning for coffee when I was little little and he would always engage me in their conversations, what a sweet heart

[Camille]

Oh that is so sad Malinda, about your mom's Uncle...how nice that he kept in touch by emails...

[Barbara Ann Storrier]

he has a telephone, does he not?

[Malinda Neisess]

geeze!!!
i haven't even called my father to let him know I exist, I have a tendency to let things go...

[Barbara Ann Storrier]

Well seeing as how you have never met him ... I can understand that there would be a CERTAIN amount of trepidation there. If you're not ready, you're not ready. Don't you dare beat yourself up about it, sweetie.

I can't even imagine having to work up the nerve to do that. But I hear it is possible.

Hugs,

Barb

[Camille]

Malinda, do you mean that your father left before you were born?
Do you know anything about him?

love from the inquiring Dab