RAOK #17 - I Let You Live Here!

My kids and I have a deal.  The hubs and I meet all their basic needs for survival, let them live here, give them lots of love and training, and grant a good majority of their wants too.  In return, they clean my kitchen every day after dinner for free.

All right, that's not entirely true.  I have a deal and they live with it.

The kitchen chore arrangement is not without its bumps.  Seems like sometimes I'm riding the youths like rented mules to get it done.  I even put together a checklist chart, had it laminated at Staples, and attached a dry erase marker to it.

Anyway, the end of last week was a bit hectic and stressful for everyone.  One daughter had Fine Arts Competition and was gone from dawn til after dusk for two days;  another daughter had all kinds of tests and homework for Honors Biology and Algebra II; the son had some homework and reading to do. (Don't these teachers know that my kitchen does not receive the proper attention it needs when they are trying to educate my children and prepare them for higher learning?); I was running around trying to do all my RAOKs; and the husband was gone out of town.

So my RAOK was to let the kids off the hook for 2 nights from kitchen jobs with the promise that I would do all their chores for them.  This is a big deal when you have 4 kids that make snacks after school, eat dinner, and in general pick up after themselves like teenagers. (That means... they don't.)  Plus two dogs.

Now, if you decide to do this type of RAOK for your children, make sure that your husband and daughter don't collude and then accidentally forget to tell you that your friends Todd and Travis are coming over to pick something up.  Or, your friends Todd & Travis will end up coming over BEFORE you can complete your RAOK and you will look like the worst. housekeeper. EVER.  You don't want your friends Todd and Travis to see your kitchen and dining room looking like something out of one of the episodes of Hoarders (the TV series on A&E), now do you?

Oh.  What?  This doesn't apply to you?  Todd & Travis aren't coming to your house, just mine?  Great.



No, this is not my real kitchen!  It wasn't THAT bad!!!! I'd light a match to it before I'd let it look like this.  This is a photo from Hoarders, the TV series that airs on Monday nights and shows you unimaginable ways that people live!

I'm hoping that my friends have been over here enough to know that I try to pride myself on keeping our home neat and that my kitchen is usually not something out of a TV series about mentally ill people.  Hopefully the boys will read the blog and accept my sincerest apologies!!

Anyway, I did get the mission accomplished and here is my kitchen after all my hard work to do a RAOK for my kids, just the way I like it to look:

RAOK #16 - Bring on the Bash!!

One of my BFFs had some friends over for a little dinner bash to celebrate her upcoming birthday.  It was a potluck** and I brought ice cream, but I also wanted to do a little RAOK for her and step it up a notch.  To help add to the festivities, I created these for our drinks:

I already had the jars and lids.  You can get this kind of jar pretty much anywhere (grocery store, Walmart, Target etc) usually in the canning section.   I love these because they have a quilt pattern on them and they are 12 oz jars with room for ice in it - which means you can pour a whole can of pop in there at one time (or soda, or coke, or whatever it is you call it in your neck of the woods!)

I purchased the lids awhile ago from a shop called We Love Citrus (click here for link).  They are not cheap but they are very well made and I looked at it as an investment because I use these for a lot of things.  If you have an awl and a hammer, you could probably just pound a straw-sized hole in the original lids if you don't want to spend any more $$. 

I love drinking out of a straw.  Here's a random piece of info for you ~ my old dentist once told me that if you drink carbonated or sugary drinks out of a straw, you do less damage to your teeth!

Here was my original inspiration from a blog I read:


From I Heart Naptime.  She's been doing this longer and her pics are way pretty!!

 I created the Happy Birthday printable, printed it out on photo paper and then cut it into strips.  I just rolled up regular tape to put it on there, that way when we were done I could just pull them off and throw them in the dishwasher.

We had a great evening and I think the ladies enjoyed my little RAOK. Happy Birthday friend!!!

** Can we please have a discussion about why it is called a "potluck" where I live now?  How does a pot (toilet?) and luck have anything to do with food? (Like, if you eat out of my pot you'll be lucky if you don't get sick??)   Where I come from we always called it a "pitch in".  You know, you pitch in some food.  But whenever I use that terminology here, I always get a blank look.  People absolutely have no idea to what I am referring!  So I call it potluck now, but I don't get it. 

RAOK #15 - What I Did About Her Dirty Deeds

I Forgave Her.

I had an entire lengthy and eloquent post written about all the things she's done, in a generic tone so she could not be recognized by most who read it.  The point was to have the readers grasp what a big deal it was to forgive someone who has done and continues to do so much damage, even though she's never asked for forgiveness. 

The hubs vetoed the post.  Said the important part of my message is about the forgiving part and not the recounting of her dirty deeds.

Dangit, I hate it when he's right (which is almost all the time, by the way)

He's right because the dirty deeds are not the message.  The message is . . . . FORGIVENESS IS YOUR CHOICE.

A wise counselor once taught me one very important lesson that I have never forgotten:

YOU DO NOT NEED SOMEONE TO SEEK YOUR FORGIVENESS OR ASK YOU FOR IT IN ORDER TO GRANT IT.  IT’S NOT ABOUT THEM, IT’S ABOUT YOU.   

When you wait around for someone to change or to ask for forgiveness, the control is theirs.  When you grant it on your own terms, the control is now yours and you are free to live your life without bitterness.  If you haven’t ever done this, I can’t explain to you the absolute freedom that comes when you choose to do it.  It’s like a weight has been lifted off of you.

When you don't forgive, eventually there's a black hole where your heart once was, as the bitterness, rage, anger, and conflict have burned right onto your soul.

It doesn’t matter what she has done.  By choosing forgiveness, I’ve won.  My conscience is clear, my heart is pure, and my soul is at peace.     

My forgiving her was a RAOK to her.  But it was also a big RAOK to myself.

FORGIVENESS.  BECAUSE YOU CHOOSE TO.  Give it a try.  It’ll change your life.


*Note: I forgave her a long time ago but she committed another dirty deed last week which is what prompted this post.  I forgave her for that one too.

RAOK #14 - The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!

Ok.  The roof is not on fire.  But for the amount of money we are burning putting a brand new roof on our house, I thought this post title was appropriate!

Cheers to my roofer guys, because you'd have to pay me a lot of money plus drag me up there daily with my hands over my eyes to do this:



Dude was walking on our 2nd story roof just like it was a sidewalk. Very impressive!!

Or this:

I've had more than my fair share of construction horror stories, but these roofers came with a good reputation.  They lived up to it too.   Professional, courteous, on time, all the things you want with your contractor.

They deserved to know how much they were appreciated, so I designed a little sign, printed it out and taped it on top of a box of cookies for a treat.  They all enjoyed grabbing a little dessert in the afternoon (although they were such hard workers that they didn't even stand around to eat it.  They were carrying them up and eating while they were working.  Outstanding work ethic!!)  Each one of them individually came up to me on my various trips in and out of the house that day to thank me.  Great guys!  If you are local and looking for a great roofer, send me a message and I'll gladly give you a referral!  Here's the printable if you want to do a RAOK for a contractor in your life:

1000??? I'm STUNNED!

I'm sitting here at my computer in shock. I checked the stats on my blog and I hit ONE THOUSAND PAGE VIEWS about 15 minutes ago. (This doesn't count the 147 times I've looked at it either.)

My blog has been up for 5 days.  What can I say?  You people bring me to tears.  Your words of encouragement on my blog, on Facebook, through my email, and in person have absolutely humbled me.  And that you have looked at pages on my blog over 1,000 times?  I have no words. 

You like it!

You like what I'm doing and what I'm writing. Some of you have been doing things too.  It's incredible and amazing.  THE BEST birthday present I could ever have.  This whole thing started because I was feeling low - hitting my 46th birthday on March 17, which means I'm closer to 50 than 40.  But worse, having a diagnosis 2 weeks ago that my knee pain cannot be permanently fixed by anything but a total knee replacement... someday down the road . . . and that I can just "manage" my pain and swelling until then 10-15 years from now.

I wallowed in self pity (in a dark bedroom . . . with chocolate) for a couple of days and then I decided I needed to snap out of it.  I decided I needed to stop focusing on myself and do something for other people which is why my RAOK mission was born.

(from Mary Engelbreit)

Thank you thank you thank you for all your love and support.  You'll never know how much it means to me!!   If you are enjoying this blog, share it with others.  There's a FB share button at the bottom of this post. 

Let's all go change the world together, one Random Act of Kindness at a time!

RAOK #12 & #13 - Quarterback

Nope.  This is not the Quarterback to whom I'm referring.  Although in deference to all my friends in Indiana, I offer my sincerest condolences on the loss of Peyton Manning to the Colts football team. 

Little known fact:  I, Justina, random peon, sat right next to Peyton on an airplane once.  I traveled enough at that time that I was almost always upgraded to first class.  I came onto the plane and went to my window seat and the guy sitting in the seat next to mine stood up to let me in.  TALL.  I could feel the energy in the air from the other passengers so I took a good look at him.  Uh, am I getting ready to sit next to Peyton Manning?  NO WAY.

So for about 90 minutes on the way to Memphis I was rubbing elbows, literally, with the most recognizable celebrity in Indianapolis.  We didn't talk much and I actually took pity on the guy because the other passengers just acted like total idiots!  He chewed Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum incessantly and his knees touched the seat in front of him even in 1st class.  He was reading paperwork from Tony Dungy and everything was done in initials. 
You know, FROM:  TD           TO: PM 

(Well of course I peaked over, you can't expect me not to have had ANY curiosity!)  So that was my brush with fame!  And since you know me, and I sat next to Peyton, well you can kind of say that you know Peyton....

I've totally digressed from my real topic.

Anyway, how many of us have change lying around?  In a jar, in the coin purse, hey even in the couch cushions.  I recruited the preschooler and we rounded up a bag of quarters.  I created this cute printable you are welcome to steal.  I actually loaded this up to Walmart One-Hour Photo and got 100 prints for 13 cents a piece.  It's cheaper than my printer cartridges at home and at Walgreens they have specials all the time (I would have had this printed for $8.75 total but their machine was broken.)
 

The babe and I took scotch tape and attached quarters to the cards and then we taped them up on the little toy machines for the kiddos to get a happy surprise!

 

The next RAOK came seconds behind when I noticed this on the counter by the cashier:

I don't normally put money in the things by the cashier because I'm a skeptic.  Do they really forward it on to the people that need it or do the employees empty it out at the end of the night and split it up?  (I know, it's rotten of me to think that way.)   But then I had an epiphany (def: "the sudden realization or comprehension of the (larger) essence or meaning of something".  Great word.)

It's not "on me" whether or not someone else does the right thing.  I did the right thing by putting my money in the holder.  I'm just responsible for my actions, not someone else's.  And, if the employees DID split the money up and take it home, I guess if they were that desperate that they stole a bunch of quarters, then have at it!

Give a quarter, feel good back.  Quarterback. 

RAOK #11 - You're kidding me!

One thing that I have discovered in doing my mission that has surprised me is how incredulous, doubtful, and confused people are when I do something nice for them for no reason.  On the particular acts where I have face to face contact with people, almost every time it has been met with total skepticism and usually with a look like I have suddenly grown two heads!

It makes me chuckle.  It also makes me feel a little blue. Apparently people doing nice things with no strings attached is so rare that no one really believes it.  A few times I have ended up over-explaining myself and getting awkward before people actually start believing that there is "no gimmick".  Using my RAOK cards (here) helps.

One of these incidences occurred yesterday.  I purchased a gift card at Walmart and put $5 on it. (Did you know that you can put ANY amount on a Walmart gift card and not just a pre-determined nice round number?  Good to know.)

My plan was to hand it to the person behind me.  Except, no one ever materialized behind me the whole time I was checking out!  So, I watched as I walked out the door and I picked a random lady. It took me approximately 4.37 minutes to explain to this woman that I was just giving her a $5 gift card.  I wasn't asking her to fill out a form, take a survey, or give me her first born grandchild.  I finally just handed her my RAOK card and said "read this".  As you can see from the picture, she finally 'got it'! 

Love that smile, lady, that's all I wanted! :)