Holy whirlwind Batman! Can it get any busier than this?  Between work, my side business, 2 baseball schedules, and graduating a senior, some things have been pushed down to the bottom of the list; my blog being one of them. BUT, I’m still doing the random acts of kindness which, I guess, is the important thing.  So, to catch you up on what I’ve done..

On week 17, I sent a neighbor a thank you card, thanking him for having such a beautiful lawn. It’s the type of grass you just want to throw your shoes off and roll around in. So lush and green..  But not only does he have nice grass, his flowers are pretty amazing too. I thought he should know that his hard work and treatment of his grass doesn’t go unnoticed. I hope he wasn’t too freaked out when I told him I often resisted the urge to run through his yard barefoot. Lol.

On week 18 Conner King, a friend of Austin’s and also a teammate on the New Castle Varsity baseball team, broke the all-time hit record for New Castle baseball. As a random act of kindness, we sent a card to Conner, congratulating him on his accomplishment. I say we, because my whole family signed it.

On week 19 I didn’t put much thought or creativity into my random act of kindness. Usually when I check out at a store and they ask me if I want to donate money to a particular charity, I say “not today”. Well, not this time. On this week, I donated money to Riley Childrens’s Hospital. I did it in your honor, Jackson.

So now I’m nearing the end of week 20 and have nothing to report yet, but the week isn’t over. I’m not sure how often I’ll be reporting the roak’s with graduation coming up. I may bundle them like I did this time. After mid June it should slow down.. hopefully.

 The last two random acts of kindness lack orignality. On both occasions I went to Starbucks before work and bought someone their cup of coffee. A little disappointed in myself for not thinking of something new to do, but the feeling of doing something unexpectedly kind for someone was still as inspiring as ever.  When I first started doing this, I was asked why I was blogging about it. “For recognition?”, they asked.  That was not it at all. Partly, I’m blogging about it to keep me accountable for continuing to perform a random act of kindness for 52 weeks. Mostly though, it was to help spread the kindness and to get others thinking about what they could to do make it a kinder world to live in. I have to say, after 16 weeks of deliberately showing kindness to someone once a week, I’ve found that it has really changed me. It has made me look at others beneath the surface. I feel I appreciate people more and actually care about them more. I find myself taking in the moment, enjoyng every second.  I’m so glad I ‘ve started this New Year’s resolution. I would recommend it to anyone. Now, next week I’ll be more original with my ROAK.

I had always dreamed about licensing my art, admiring Kelly Rae Roberts and how successful she has been with her partnership with Demdaco (and now many others), but knowing Kelly Rae worked directly with the company licensing her work, it made me question if having an “agent” was the way I wanted to go, or if I should try to pursue licensing deals on my own. I knew it would be more work if I did it on my own, but that would also mean cutting out the middle man. After some deliberation, I decided to turn Penny Lane down.

Then the work began. I started reading about licensing, wrote letters to comapnies, sent a package of samples to Demdaco.. all of this in my off hours, on top of trying to stay on top of shipping orders out that I was getting from Etsy and keeping my consignments stocked. I quickly realized that I can’t do it all and do it all well. Maybe if I didn’t have a 8-5 job I could do it, but I could see that it was too much. I began to rethink Penny Lane’s offer and called a couple of the artists that have signed with Penny Lane. They were so helpful and encouraging, willing to answer any question I asked, and they didn’t have one bad thing to say about Penny Lane. In fact, they LOVED Penny Lane. They had also just signed David Bromstad of HGTV fame, so they must be legit, right? Knowing all this made me realize I’d made a mistake. Would Penny Lane still want me after turning them down?

I had originally told them that I wanted to pursue licensing on my own and they said they understood. This time, I told them how much I learned about licensing and how much work I found was involved . I told them if they were still interested in my art, that I’d love the opportunity to be one of their artists. They were very nice and quickly sent me the paperwork and in October of last year, I became an artist of Penny Lane Publishing!

Since signing, the first group of prints became available in late February and can be seen and bought on their website. I get reports (and checks!) for the prints I sell and have been really pleased with the quantity so far. Also, Penny Lane sent me 50 copies of each print, as written in the contract. I’ll be placing these in my shop on Etsy soon.

So, that brings us to today. After standing in the rain watching the Little League opening ceremony for an hour, I quickly find my Yankee Little Leaguer, Brandon, and we jump in the car out of the rain. I check my phone to see what messages I had and find I had an email message from Penny Lane. They have been contacted by a company called Crossroads who wants to license three of my designs to place on their candles!! Are you kidding me?! I immediately call Mom and she says she actually has Crossroads candles in her shop (The Cross-Eyed Cat in New Castle).  Apparently they have two kinds of jar candles, one that just has a Crossroads label and one that has a picture on it. I snagged a picture from their website to show how the candle “may” look. I’m guessing at this point, of course.. BUT, you can see for yourself when Mom is able to order them and have them on her shelf at the Cross-Eyed Cat. Woohoo! My first licensing deal!

These are the three designs licensed by Crossroads.
Crossroad’s current picture candles.

 This past week was Spring Break for my boys. Unfortunatley the older ones had baseball committments and couldn’t leave for a vacation, but Brandon and I managed to sneak in 4 days to go to Gatlinburg, TN with my mom, dad, sister, and her two kids. When we go to Gatlinburg there are a couple things that Brandon HAS to do.. go putt-putt and ride go-karts. The first day we were there we stopped at Ripley’s Old MacDonald’s Farm putt-putt just in front of the outlet mall in Seiverville. Putt-putting was fun, despite playing in the rain for 4 holes, and everyone got a hole-in-one at some point. Yay!  Plus, 4 of the people in our party won a free game on the last hole. Double yay! The exit of the putt-putt course led into their “fun zone”, an arcade in which the games gave you tickets and the tickets bought cheap toys… the kind of thing kids love. Brandon and his cousins were no exception. They immediately wanted to buy some tokens.  I limited Brandon to $2 worth because we weren’t planning on staying long. He found a game that gave a good amount of tickets and was fun for him to play. He had his eye on a particular toy in the case, a penquin with a parachure. I think it took 100 tickets, but he only had 70. I gave him another dollar so he could earn more tickets and get the toy he wanted. He ended up getting more than enough and was able to get two boxes of those snaps you throw to the ground to make them pop. Still, with some left over, he was searching the case to see what else he could get. I whispered in his ear and suggested he give his left over points to the person behind him. His eyes lit up and he said “Yeah! That can be our random act of kindness!”  Ah.. what a proud mommy I am!

Wow, the past week really got away from me. Sometimes I don’t know where the time goes. Every night is filled with something that has to be done.. orders, scholarships, varsity baseball games, little league practice, creating new designs for my publisher (more to come on that one!), planning for graduation/open house, on and on.. While I did actually do a ROAK last week, I just didn’t seem to find time to get it posted. So, I’m doubling up my ROAK posts this week.

Last week I pulled a drive-thru ROAK again, but changed it up a little this time. I was getting lunch at McDonald’s and planned to purchase a $5 gift card and have them give it to the person behind me. This particular drive-thru had two lanes. My place in line was before the split to two lanes. As I got up close enough to pick my lane, this other car, who hadn’t been waiting in line, passed the car waiting behind me and cut in front of her and claimed a spot in the 2nd drive-thru lane. I mean, really lady, you couldn’t see that there was someone waiting in line ahead of you? I was hoping that she wouldn’t end up behind me when we merged together again, because I didn’t particularly want her to get the $5 gift card. But, maybe the RAOK is just what she needed to snap her out of her selfishness. We were up to order at the same time, and, if you follow the every other car routine, it was my turn to move ahead to pay. Guess who guns it to cut in line once again.. Serves her right. Little did she know if she had waited her turn, she would’ve gotten a $5 gift card. Karma’s a bitch.

Then today, we came home from a baseball game around 7:30. Well, there was no way I was fixing a meal at 7:30, so we went out to eat like we usually do after a game. (You know, I just realized a lot of my ROAKs have to do with restaurants. Is that bad? Haha. I need to come up with some other ideas..) Ron and I drove separately since we both came from work, so we met at Los Amigos, our favorite Mexican restaurant, and Austin met us after he got back to the school. We sat down and, usually they already know what we want, but this time we got a waitress we hadn’t seen before. We figured she must be new. She starts off apologizing and wiping the sweat off her brow. She said she’s had a very stressful day and seemed frazzled. I said “Aw, sorry it’s been stressful”, then she said “I can’t talk about it, I’ll start crying. That’s what I do when I get stressed” and then tears began to well up in her eyes. Gosh, I felt so bad for her.  I smiled at her and told her not to worry, that we were easy customers, trying to lighten the mood. She did great at taking our order and refilling our drinks while we were there. Once we were finished, I reached into my purse to get our frequent customer punch card and saw that it was filled, which meant $5 off our meal. Yay!  But, instead of getting $5 off, I took that $5 and added it to the tip we were going to leave her. I made sure I personally gave it to her and thanked her for the great service and told her I hope tomorrow will be a better day for her. She smiled and thanked me. Hopefully it made her night a little more bearable.

So for next week, the challenge of coming up with a ROAK idea that doesn’t involve restaurants!

Good service is hard to find.  Unfortunately it’s rare to get a simple “Thank You” after going through the drive-thru of a fast-food restaurant. Yes, as much as I hate to admit, I’m a frequent drive-thru customer… so I should know, haha. I’ve actually started to bring my lunch to work just recently, but still go out to get my fountain diet coke or sweet tea. Plus, it’s just good to get out of the office even for 10 minutes or so, especially with the weather we’ve been having. Several weeks ago I was taken aback with how friendly this one particular girl at the McDonald’s drive through was. After several weeks of being handed my drink through the window, I realized that she just wasn’t having a good day that first day, she was like that EVERY day. Wow. When she handed me my drink, she actually made eye contact with me, said thank you with the brightest smile on her face, then told me to have a great day. Because of her great customer service, I go out of my way to get my drink there if I have other errands to run during lunch. I thought her manager should know what a great job she does, so one day last week I asked to talk to her. I told her that it was rare to get such a friendly person at a drive-up window that acutally smiled, made eye contact, and thanks the customers. Good customer service should always be rewarded!

  On March 6, devastating tornados whipped through several states, causing unbelievable damage and death. The pictures of the devastation and the interviews with the people that had lost their houses were humbling. I can’t even imagine going through a storm and having everything you own taken away from you. The outpouring of kindness from the community was (and still is) incredible. People came from miles around to help clear the rubble and to volunteer where they were needed. It was something I would’ve like to have done had it not been for my job keeping me in New Castle. Instead, I did donate money to the Red Cross to help these victims. I thank God for the roof over my head and the health of my family.. and for the outpouring of kindness from people. It is incredible to watch and to know that when things get rough, deep down we’re all here helping one another.

 Oh boy, I’m late. I actually performed 2 random acts of kindness last Monday, but the week got away from me. Then, I thought to myself that I’d update over the weekend and I caught some kind of bug. So here I am, Monday at 3p. Didn’t go to work. In my sweats, no makup, and hair pulled up. Ugh. Not the way I wanted to start off the week, but the perfect time to update my blog I suppose.

Last week I was trying to come up with a new way to express kindness. The mind was blank. So, Monday morning, I decided to buy someone a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Granted, I’ve done this before, but having it done to me, I know what a great surprise and feeling it is. Then, at lunch the same day, I walk in to Target with two coupons for clothing. I couldn’t find anything I wanted, so I got some other things I was out of and went to the checkout. While my items were being scanned, someone came in line behind me and had clothing items! Perfect! She was thrilled when I offered her the coupons I didn’t use and I was thrilled that I was able to save her some money.

When I was going through treatments for breast cancer, one of the places I found support was through a chat group on the internet. Through this group I met a wonderful Canadian friend, Jean Zadilsky. Jean had already gone through treatment and was very helpful and willing to lend an ear and offer advice. Since that day we met over the internet, we have emailed each other nearly every day. A very special friendship going on 16 years now. She gives her support to women having breast cancer by mentoring them over the phone. She also raises money for breast cancer research by participating in the Weekend to End Women’s Cancers (it used to be breast cancer focused, but has since expanded to cover all women’s cancers). The Weekend is a two-day, 60-kilometer or one-day 32-kilometer walk. Jean has formed a team called Jean Machine which consists of Jean, a friend, her daughter, and her daughter’s fiance’. As my 8th act of kindness, I donated to Jean Machine; A wonderful bunch of people walking for a great cause. Below, Jean Machine is crossing the finish line in a previous walk.