Random acts of Kindness abound

According to Wikepedia, a random act of kindness is defined as " a purportedly selfless act performed by person or persons wishing to either assist or cheer up an individual or in some cases, even an animal. There will generally be no reason other than to make people smile :) or be happier. Either sponteneous or planned in advance, "RAok's" are encouraged by various communities. An oft sided example of a random act of kindness is, when paying the toll at the toll booth on a highway, is to pay for the car behind you as well."

I found it appropriate to share what a very nice friend is doing for me, since all my "friends" in the blogging community practice random acts of kindness daily in all the prayers and encouragement we give each other. I feel so incredibly blessed to have "met" so many truly wonderful, caring people on this journey!

Anyway, on my run with my fabulous running buddies this morning, I was lamenting on how I was going to be able to pull Thanksgiving dinner off this year. For the past few years, we've always gone to Joe's cousin's for the holiday, who lives only 5 minutes away and is a FABULOUS cook! I have slid by on bringing veggies and my famous weight watcher "Pumpkin cupcakes". This year, however, Joe's cousin is going to a family reunion of sorts with her husband's family. DARN THE LUCK! However, I have done Thanksgiving before and Joe does a mean turkey, so I was not too stressed. Now-that is not worth lamenting over, I know. BUT, there is more to the story. We have been wanting to replace our carpet (the bedrooms and excercise room) with wood floors for awhile now. We got a quote, and it was like 3x more than we expected. October came and went, and we had been too busy to go the store and try to find something we liked that was more affordable. Our procrastinating paid off-as they had gotten a great deal on a shipment of wood--Brazilan cherry--and it was within our budget (sorta). Great news--they started YESTERDAY! I was clearly NOT thinking how much work this would entail for us as well. We spent the weekend getting EVERYTHING off the floor and Joe disassembled furniture. It's all stacked around our house-on the lanai, in the garage, EVERYWHERE. We slept the last 2 nights on our mattress on the floor in our room. It's like camping-Sean thinks it's groovy fun. Anyway-they said they could get done in 2 days. Now, it's 4 bedrooms and an excercise room--and the rooms are not really that small. Yesterday, they got Sean's room done. Granted, they had to spend the morning ripping out carpet, and really only had the afternoon to get Sean's room done, but still, there is NO WAY they will get done today. So, Not only am I not really a cook (but I can follow a receipe and I am on weight watchers so I can make some good weight watchers thanksgiving things) but my house is a DISASTER AREA! wow, that was a long lament. Anyway-that was what i was telling my fabulous running buddies this morning at 5 am. One lady, who I've only met recently, said, "Oh, I MAKE volumes of stuff!" How many people are you having? She SERIOUSLY invited me over to come get some of her HOMEMADE butternut squash soup, some homemade cranberry sauce, and she said she was making stuffing today. She offered to make ME extra stuffing! I could not believe she was even serious. She told me to call her before 11 because she was going to Panera to get bread for the stuffing and she needed to know if she needed to get more. I was flabbergasted that this very sweet woman, that I only recently met, is offering to help JULIA CHILD my Thanksgiving!! Now, this is the same lady, that a couple months ago after the rumors of the "age bill" that would limit adoptive parents to age to 50 first surfaced, and i was lamenting about it on our run, who wrote me a note of encouragement about the adoption process and how everything would work out.
Melinda is OBVIOUSLY a very very nice lady and I am just so very blessed to have wonderful people in my life who practice random acts of kindness as a daily ritual.
Now, I don't need the stuffing after all, as Joe's cousin Elaine is bringing turkey and stuffing (yay!!) and we're not having dinner until after 5, so I am feeling so much better. I can get up, go run the 5k and 10K Turkey Trot, then come home and whip up some fabulous weight watchers sweet taters and green beans and get the house together. Plus, my hubby,although an "old man" at almost 52, is a TASK MASTER and he works so hard and fast. He even painted the guest room this weekeend as well as everything else he did.

I would like to take this time to thank all of my new blogger buddies for being such an awesome and amazing support network and for your candor and ability to speak from the heart. I can't imagine going thru this journey without all of you. Let's all be grateful for our MANY blessings and practice random acts of kindness EVERYDAY!

Love you all!!