The Kinder Generation: Germs, Germs, Germs.

Well, I have not had the best week!  Tuesday, sometime in the middle of the night I came down with the flu...and let me tell you, it was intense.  I haven't gotten that sick in over a year or two.   So I didn't get to do too many  random acts of kindness.  Not to mention, Wednesday night my boyfriend came down with the flu, the same exact kind.  Needless to say, our house is germ infected! 

When Thursday came around, as much as I wanted to go to my grandpa's I felt like I shouldn't.  With as sick as he is if he caught any strand of the flu what so ever, he'd probably be back in the hospital again.  I don't want that on me, plus I would feel so bad!    So anyways, I called him up and asked if he thought it was okay if I came over, despite of all of this I still wanted to stick to my pact (spending time with him).  But he said what I thought he would say, it's probably not a good idea. Today I'm finally feeling 100% better.  My sister and I went over to his house today and celebrated her birthday.  I bought all the pizzas, and made the cake, which was oh so good.   We had so much fun playing this simple game, Shut-box..I believe it's called.

Other than that, I manged to do little acts here and there today:

Helped an older lady carry her groceries to her car.  Her reaction was priceless when I asked she had this
deer in the headlights look, "umm, whatt is going on?!" she was probably thinking. haha. but she smiled very big.  "You didn't have to do that" she said.  I insisted it was okay...she said thank you about 4 times.  I told her she was welcome and to have a great day.

It was simple, just seen the opportunity to do a nice thing.

Today was Marsha's benefit.  I helpedwith the silent action and call off the raffle tickets.  It was such a good turn out!  There was food, live music, and so many kids!   It was a lot of fun though.  I'm excited to see how much they made. 

The Kinder Generation: The Elderly

Yesterday was my day off, so I decided to actually do something I've been meaning to do for awhile now, just like the situation with my grandpa.  I always say or think I wanna go to the nursing home, visit with the old people spend some time..making them happy.  It's just one of those things that would pop in my head every now and then, "you should do that, it would be nice".

I decided it would be nice to make cookies, and deserts.  So I just made a regular chocolate chip cookie and then raspberry bars (my grandmothers recipe).  Its kind of funny because my great grandma is staying at the nursing home I went to, and it was her recipe.  On a sad note, she has Alzheimers so bad, who knows if she realized, or understood.  It happens though, it's part of old age-she still loved them! 

You don't realize how much people actually need and want someone to talk to, just to tell stories to or laugh with.  I got all the typical stories about "in my day" and "when I was your age" I couldn't help but chuckle sometimes.  It was cute.  It seems like younger people bring out the fun loving personalities in the elderly.  They get so happy, and are usually in much better moods! 

I felt pretty good walking out of there, like I just made someone's day.  Well a couple people's day. 

The Kinder Generation: Every Bit Helps Cont.

Last week I explained how a friend lost her house and everything they owned in a fire and that we were trying to get donations for them by donating our tips at Border Grill.   It started out with a co-worker and I, but we got more people to donate their tips as well.   We ended up raising $260 for them which we decided to buy gift cards from Kohls and Wal-Mart.  Partly because Marsha (owned the house) was wearing her sisters clothes, so we figured she could go to Kohls and at least buy herself $100 worth of clothing.  When we gave her these gift cards, she was shocked and started crying which made me cry.  It was very sad, but happy at the same time.  I couldn't express how thankful she was.  It made me feel so amazing just to know that I helped someone, and that we pretty much made her day :-)

The Kinder Generation: Surprise, Surprise

I have a feeling that my grandpa was very surprise when I actually came over last night!  I had such a great time, and you could tell him and Sue (Married my grandpa, but it's kinda weird to call her "grandma") were very happy to see me.  They probably just thought..that I was just saying I'd be back, and then never show up.  We ended up playing 2 games of Yahtzee!  I don't know if anyone ever heard of this dice game, but we (mom, sister and I) always used to play, those times where my mom actually brought us over, and visited with her dad.  To my surprise, and everyone else I won BOTH games, kicked their butt actually.  I was so happy!!!  Not only because I never play, but because they play every night.  I got a score of 901, which their high score is 981..which made me feel really good, considering I wasn't even trying.  I was just having fun with them, chatting and laughing! 

We also discussed my sister's birthday party.   I'm throwing a little get together with food, and presents at my grandpas house.  She's going out to eat with my mom, later in the week.  I figure since my mom and grandpa aren't getting along yet, we'd have it over there so they can be apart of her special day to.  I will be buying pizzas, and making a cake for my sister.  We talked about it last night, and we're already pretty excited by this.

Speaking of my mom and grandpa still not talking, I figured I would explain how that's going.  A couple days ago, I told my mom I went to grandpa's and she asked me how that went.  I told her it went really good and that I made a pact with myself to visit him every Thursday.   She told me she was happy, but also her feelings about it and what happen.  She doesn't think she should be the one to make the first move, because she doesn't feel like she did anything wrong.  She feels like her dad treats Sue's daughter better than he EVER treated his own kids, this is partly true.  But I tried explaining how maybe stepping in his shoes, and learning why he is the way he is might help her see that he has changed.  There are some other issues involving this but it's too much to ramble on in a blog, and I feel like that's really not necessary.  All I know that my grandpa has definitely changed in his old age, he's more lovable, compassionate, and open.  He feels bad about all the stuff that happened, things that were said, etc but I think he's scared to make the first move because he doesn't know how my mom will react.  She's very stubborn, and intimating sometimes (her bark is WAY bigger than her bite.  She's really sensitive, and lovable) so he probably feels like it wont work anyways.

So pretty much I believe it's all about the first move, I think once they got over that...they would love each other again, it would be over.  But it's getting them to that point.  Last night I talked to my mom again after I was done visiting him, and she smiled and nodded, and didn't say anything negative, maybe she's leaning towards it?  I don't know, but me and my sister are still trying to find a way where we can get them together.  We'll come up with something, hopefully soon... this is nonsense. 

The Kinder Generation: Every Thursday

Last Wednesday I found out my grandma on my dads side passed away in the nursing home, she was staying at MCMCF.  Marquette County Medical Care Facility, a nursing home for the elderly in Ishpeming.  I wish I could say I was closer and visited often, but that is very far from the truth.   I am not all that close with my father, or that side of the family but I was still sad to hear about it from my mom, because it's a bit depressing when anybody dies. 

I also have a grandpa on my mom's side who isn't doing the best, he was actually suppose to die 5 years ago, when he was in the hospital for everything but cancer, pretty much.  He was near death, and they were ready to give up but suddenly he came out of it and survived.  We like to say that he is living on borrowed time, and be thankful for every moment but with school and work I am so busy!  I always say I'll visit him, tomorrow, tomorrow but I get caught up with every thing in my own life..but when my grandma died I realized there might not be too many more tomorrows for him.  That's when I made a pact with myself to visit him every Thursday.  I'm usually done with my school work by then, I'm off, and my boyfriend is gone to cribbage so no excuses. 
 
 I actually went this Thursday and ended up staying for over four hours!  It was so much fun.  We talked about old times, and reminisced.  He told me old stories about his and our family, things I never knew, I was so interested!  You could tell he was so happy when I was there, we were both rambling on about everything, smiles and laughter.  It was a great time, I'm so happy I started this.  After I left, there was a feeling that came over me that I couldn't explain.  My heart felt so good, I was so happy and for some reason it felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulder.  I know that what I'm doing is the right thing and it feels so good.  When I told my grandpa, "I'll be back soon, I promise" he was probably thinking, "yeah...right, you always say that, it'll be months before she comes back".  He's going to be so surprised and happy when I actually do go back, this Thursday.  

I also have some plans for this, in the future.  I'm not too sure how to go about it yet, but my mother and grandpa (her dad) had a little fight/misunderstanding awhile back, I guess you could say, "family drama" and for some reason haven't talked since.  It was so stupid, they both feel bad about it, both love each other but are too stubborn to do anything about it. It's ridiculous, we all were SO close and I want our family to be like that once again.  I plan on getting them together some how, so they make up and forgive before it's too late.  This should be interesting...

The Kinder Generation: Every Bit Helps

After our class discussion on Monday I've decided to be much more open about my project.  Instead of limiting and being so specific about each random act of kindness I'm just gong to look for daily opportunities for me to do different acts and be kind to someone for no reason other than trying to be a helpful, positive person.   

I still want to approach each different age group but I think that will just happen automatically and at the end of the experiment I can do a comparison.  I am also going to be more aware to when people are being kind to me, and do something nice.  Hopefully I'll become much more appreciative to things that I don't think about. 

I didn't waste any time starting this project because something very unexpected and terrible happened to my cousin in law's mother and brother last week.  Her house and everything she owned was covered in ash from a house fire.   Her son was living with there with his girlfriend who is pregnant.  They lost everything.  

My co-worker and I had the idea to donate anything we could find to help their family out.   Since every month we get tips at Border Grill that get divided among the employees, we decided we should donate our tips for this month to them.  It's not the biggest donation but it's something, we also asked other employees if they wanted to do the same, most said yes.  A lot of people we know are also donating and giving them what they can.  Instantly I felt good about this choice.  It felt really good knowing I helped them out and did my part.  The family are very very thankful for all the contributions that were made.  They already have a house in Negaunee, with most of the stuff they need.  With the money we collected at Border Grill, we're just going to get them a gift certificate so they can get whatever else they need.