Rock and a Hard Place

Each Monday on my FBX Adventure page, I share the Random Acts of Kindness that others do, or have had done to them. There is so much bad in the world, that I like having one day that I just share the good. 

Here's the good that happened to me. 

Friday the Bug and I were out running errands. We were suppose to meet dad in town, and left the house to head out. around 4:30. As I headed down our hill, I heard the worse noise EVER. EVER. I wasn't sure if my tire was going to fall off or what. This noise has happened before, but I was the only one to hear it. I took my phone out, turned on the video camera and made my own version of the Blair Witch Project. AKA. I started driving and just held my phone out the window. 

I then called the Ford garage in town to just see if I could stop in to play the video to make sure my car would be safe to drive until Monday, or whenever they could get it in to fix. After all, it was 4:00 on a Friday, no one has time on a Friday.They told me to bring it on in and they'd take a listen.

Bug and I showed up and I played the video and the mechanic knew exactly what was wrong.  

There was a rock stuck in my brake pad. They took my car for a drive to figure out which tire, and then drove it straight into the garage and got right to work taking off my tire and checking my brakes. 

This might not sound like a huge deal to you, but to me it was. I'm sure they had a long week, and they didn't bat an eye making room for my car and making me feel safe to drive my car with the Bug.



When I went to pay for the 30 minutes of their time, they told me to not worry about it. That made me even happier. So, I wanted to do something nice for them. I decided on cookies. Who doesn't love chocolate chip cookies?

I do need to remind myself when baking cookies to NOT DOUBLE THE RECIPE. Big Red is good, but he's not THAT good. Don't worry, I hate 1/3 of the dough, so it was safe. 

Random Acts of Kindness (Recap)

Aka. How I spent my Birthday.

First, THANK YOU to everyone who shared this post on Facebook (and other various Social Media outlets that I still don't quite get.) I'm hoping that it got people thinking of what they can do for others, even if they didn't do something to share. 

Some of these are in the words of those that shared, and they are all FABULOUS! Some of them are mine and I am just going to throw those in as well. Thank you for making this the best birthday yet!

In no particular order:

#1
Charlotte was with her friend and her mother for the day while I worked. While they were out and about, they found out that a house had burnt down near our neighborhood, close to the mothers aunts house. They found out that the family lost everything and had a little baby that they had literally had to throw out the window to save. So they detoured their day and went to the store to buy diapers and some other necessities to give to the family. Charlotte (6) and her friend also drew cards for the family.

#2
Meet Nick!

Nick was saved from slaughter by three lovely ladies that I know through the NW Washington Dressage world. One was my riding instructor for a while...she should get bonus points for JUST THAT. Isn't he adorable!? What a great random act of kindness! See. SOMEONE got a pony, just not me.

#3
Money donated to a family of a terminally ill child to help with things that may come up.

#4
One lovely momma (Ruthie Hart) went through her new sweet baby's clothes that no longer fit and gave them to another momma who is expecting in January.

#5
Holding doors

#6
Getting a high chair for a busy momma at a restaurant and carrying it to her table.

#7
While I would not  normally tell anyone, you asked, so here's what my husband and I just did:  Background:  some relatively new friends of ours made arrangements to come  out and fix our dining room ceiling (it was damaged about 5 years ago from  a water leak upstairs and had to be torn out to the floor joists). I had a  difficult time getting my husband to get help and fix it for the past 5 years, so the wife of the couple who we have recently befriended pushed the men to fix the ceiling while I was away on business last week. The husband (friend) is a contractor and did most of the work; my husband paid for the supplies, but he/they (did I mention the wife brought dinner out one night?? A 35 min. drive!) would not let us pay him for his time (he came  out 3 days in a row). So...my husband set up a 6 day trip to Hawaii for  them...we used our time-share for their lodging and credit card miles for  their flight/car. Don't get me wrong...we are NOT wealthy. As a matter of  fact, we just got through 2.5 years of HELL caused by my husband's  employer. But it was an idea my husband came up with, and felt strongly about, so we did it.  They found out on Thanksgiving and they left this  morning at 8:30 =)

#8
Writing a letter to a boy with a physical disability who enjoys receiving mail. 

#9
My birthday (12/7) was great. My day started with breakfast in bed. Bug tried to steal my bacon...he is lucky he is so cute. We went to a holiday bazaar (which was ho-hum.) After the holiday bazaar we went to the animal shelter and took treats we bought and lots of bowls we had left over from fostering cats in Seattle. (Seriously, I think we had 10 unused bowls.) It made me feel good to show Bug that birthdays are about giving back to others, rather than receiving yourself. (Although I did get a Soda Stream, and I am VERY excited about that.) 

#10
I think this is my favorite of the things we did this week. Today I stopped by Fred Meyer and decided to get a coffee from Starbucks (side note, when we were looking to move to Fairbanks I looked up to see if there was a Starbucks here before I agreed.) There was an elderly gentleman in front of me counting his change to buy a coffee. The girl checking him out was so patient. I smiled at her and pointed at my credit card and to the gentleman. She told him his beverage was purchased. He told her he had wanted a cookie too, and I told him that was taken care of too. He told me that I made his day (the feeling was mutual) and asked me why. I told him it was my birthday, and I thought that birthdays should be spent doing nice things for others rather than getting things. The girl checking me out told me he was a regular and thanked me for being so nice to him. 

Pete and I chatted about life for about 5 minutes while we waited for our drinks.The line was long. I thought it was weird that she hadn't asked me for my name. I figured they must have been good if they can remember who gets what drink. 

All at once all three girls started singing Happy Birthday and handed me my drink. It was a pretty damn nice way to end my weekend. 

I have lots of fun other exciting things to write about, but figure I will save those for later this week. I would love to do another Random Acts of Kindness post around Christmas, so keep them coming!

(Also, if you told me about one and I didn't include it, PLEASE know that it was not on purpose! Feel free to add it below!)