An Indiana school district rescues unused food and sends it home with elementary school students for the weekend.
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A 13 Year Old Boy Buys His Mom a Car
William Preston did yard and house work in the neighborhood and traded his X box to buy his single mom a car.
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Board Games on Bed Sheets
Kevin Gatlin got the idea to put board games on bed sheets after he visited his friend’s child in the hospital. NBC Charlotte reports on the successful results:
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Affirmations
Three year old Sammy Silver was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bones. He’s had 40 bone fractures and six surgeries. Doctors called him a “glass baby.” His mom teaches him affirmations, and Sammy says them with conviction:
Steve Greig from Colorado started adopting senior dogs after one of his dogs died. Now he has ten dogs and a pig. Read about him in this Epoch Times article and be sure to watch the short video included.
I’ve been writing about my mother lately (maybe for a Chicken Soup story) and found this post by Trini Lind about highly sensitive people which made me realize that my mother was a HSP, too! It helps me appreciate her more, even though she’s no longer in this world.
“Overly sensitive,” was the phrase back when I was a kid. I fought against my sensitivity my whole life. I didn’t’ want to be like my mother who had nervous breakdowns and migraines. I loved my mother, but I wanted to be strong like my father. Since I couldn’t fix my mom, I watched Star Trek and developed a huge crush on Mr. Spock. Calm, cool, logical Spock. Someone had to stay calm. So I suppressed. I did well in school, drew pictures, and made up stories in my head. And I watched a lot of Star Trek.
Somehow, I managed to become tough enough as an adult to work as an addictions counselor for 30 years, with only occasional meltdowns on my kitchen floor after a hard day. With all the counseling skills I applied to myself, I guess I became a moderately sensitive person – on the outside at least.
As a retiree, I have begun to embrace my sensitive nature. I love staying home with the dogs, writing, doing a little painting. At home, I have plenty of time to recover from the times I do go out and interact with people and plenty of time to think about my parents.
Now that I understand more, I wish I’d been nicer to Mom. I wasn’t mean to her. But she tended to bring out my logical side which might been cold sometimes.
I finally painted over the hearts that mysteriously appeared on her bedroom ceiling after she died in 2008. I try to go to my deceased parents’ house at least once a week to sort through their things. There’s a Tiffany style touch lamp on my mom’s old nightstand. On two separate visits in the past month, I was sure that lamp was off before I left the house. But when I returned on the following weeks, the lamp was on. Maybe touch lamps are highly sensitive, too. But I have to wonder. Was that you, Mom?
On my last visit, I unplugged the lamp. If it’s on again when I go back, I’ll know something’s up.
Maybe everything will turn out okay. Maybe even better than okay. After all, look what happened to my love life that was in the toilet at the beginning of this century. And now, things have turned out better than okay.
Back when I was newly divorced, then in the sick rebound, then in the not as sick rebound, then lonely and wondering if I should just give up on romance, I had to work hard to imagine that maybe things would be okay or even better.
But imagine I did.
I’m good at imagining the worst, or the drudgery of a life of a life of drudgery. Correction: I WAS good at that. Whatever we practice, we get better at. I’ve gotten better at imagining good things happening, because look what’s happened! Not only has the man of my dreams come back to me at the perfect time, but he’s empowered me to pursue my creative soul’s desires!
Yet, I still have to work at imagining that maybe things will turn out great for my grown children, especially my baby girl. I guess I had a lot of practice worrying as a mom. Too much worrying. It helps to remember what I was like in my early 20s. I got side tracked by my emotions just like she has a tendency to do. I floundered as to my direction and career goals. I didn’t know just how to get back on course. But, eventually, I figured it out and went back to college. She is not me, so she might not go back to college. But maybe things will work out okay. Probably things will work out okay.
Maybe they will work out even better than okay.
Maybe we can slow the damage we are doing to our planet.
Maybe we can reverse the damage we’ve done.
Maybe we can learn to live in peace, at least more peace.
Maybe there is hope for each and every one of us.
Maybe imagining things working out better than we imagined can improve out chances, especially if we take steps in the direction of our hopes and dreams.
Maybe it will take more time than we imagined, but maybe that time is what we need to grow up.
Maybe the human race will grow up before we destroy ourselves.
Our Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday was: “mb.” We were instructed to “find a word that has those two letters in it, in that order,”and base our post on it. We were also instructed, by our fearless leader of SOC prompts, to have fun!
If you’d like to give it a go, visit Linda by clicking this link:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.
The first thing that popped into my head when I read our Stream of Consciousness prompt (“miss”) was that I miss my daughter. She’s 22 and living mostly with her boyfriend. I remember I did the same thing when I was her age….
I don’t miss the yelling matches and drama we had back in the days when she was in puberty and I was in menopause. I knew when I had her so late in life, that those would be challenging times, but we got through it. For most of that time, it was just me and my girl. We were best buddies – most of the time, when we weren’t yelling at each other. We didn’t yell at each other a lot, but definitely when we were hungry and had low blood sugar. We learned to not talk when we were hungry.
I don’t miss her having a meltdown at midnight when I had to go to work the next day, or the messiness of her room.
I do miss us singing together on road trips, and her teaching me songs by Pink and Lady Gaga. I miss her dry sense of humor. I miss the excitement of putting the Christmas tree up together, as hard as it was, just the two of us.
I wonder if my mom felt this way when I was 22.
I miss my mom. She’s an angel now. A zany angel. She used to make “angeled eggs” because she didn’t want to give the devil credit for something so good as what other people called deviled eggs.
Christmas is different when you don’t have kids. But I still love the Christmas lights and singing carols. I still love the memories. And I do enjoy the peace of these days.
Now I understand why people like their grand children, adore their grandchildren, brag about their grandchildren. I’m looking forward to being a grandmother. I do have grandchildren but they are far away. So I look forward to someday having them close at Christmas time. Until then, I will imagine them opening their packages from Grandma.
I think I want to make some gingerbread cookies.
If you’d like to join in the Saturday SOC prompt and post, visit Linda’s blog:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.
Since I’ve been writing about my son lately, I thought I’d pass along this Mother’s Day message from him, to me, to all of you who mother, that includes mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, guardians of animals and the earth. Take time to nurture you. I’m going for a nap, now. 🙂
I have my mother’s eyes. Her soft hazel, sometimes sad, patient eyes. I’ve often wished I had darker eye brows and lashes, like my daughter, so I didn’t have to wear eye make up.
My daughter has beautiful green eyes, and beautiful, full lips. But she complains about her nose being too big. I tell her she is beautiful.
She tells me I am beautiful, and I wonder what she sees.
Many years ago, in a rebellious stage, I went without make up, even at work. Then someone described me as “that woman with no eyebrows.”
And I started wearing make up again.
I don’t remember my mother ever wearing eye make up, just lipstick. My dad always liked the natural look. He complained when I started wearing make up as a teenager, especially the blue, or green, or purple, eye shadow.
I know he thought my mother was beautiful with her soft red hair, that never went gray, just lost the red, and her soft hazel eyes with no make up. He adored her. Dad hasn’t changed much in the house since she died in 2008. All my mother’s angels, maybe 1oo of them, still stand watch around the living room.
Today is my mother’s birthday. Her soft hazel eyes watch me with love, even though they know all my secrets now. She still loves me.
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
Anything is Possible! 