Giving Back

So I recently read a book Called In a Heartbeat- Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving. I actually finished it a couple hours ago. Good book. I recommend it to all. Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy share their story. Now these names may sound familiar to you and that's because they are the ones who adopted Michael Oher. (Perhaps you have seen the movie The Blindside. That movie is based off of the book with the same title.) Anyways, with the help of Sally Jenkins they share their story. It is pretty interesting and powerful. They give a lot of background information about their lives in the first few chapters. They also talk about their kids Collins, SJ, and Michael a lot throughout. They have a whole philosophy on giving. This is pretty interesting. They share their story on how they used to be poor and then became rich. They didn't just stop there; they give back to people which can mean a lot. It didn't matter how small or big that something was that they gave back, they did it cheerfully. Even when there were times when they barely had enough to get by on, they tried to give back.

Here are a few excerpts from the book... "So in this book we'd like to introduce our family properly, tell you how we saw events through our own eyes, and deliver our message in our own voices. It's a message about giving. We often say that our son Michael gave us much more than we gave him... We gave him a home... We gave him love... We gave him advice and support... Each thing we gave him has been returned to us multiplied." (page 4) "It pained us to realize that we too often failed at the simplest kind of giving. While we were waiting for a great cause, or focused on an agenda, we chose not to notice someone standing right in front of us... ...We agreed that be embracing a smaller and more cheerful kind of giving, we might ease a lot of everyday problems. (page 22) (Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, In a Heartbeat-Sharing the power of Cheerful Giving. Henry Holt and Company, 2010. Print. )

I wish that I had written down some points that I liked when I was reading the book. That would have made it easier to share things here, oh well...One part that also stood out in the book was when they referenced a man by the name of Reed Sandridge. He was laid off from work a while back, but still decided to give to others. He started something called year of giving where each day he gives $10 to someone. He decided to do this all year long. I thought it was cool because he started a blog about it. Each day is a new blog entry. (Today was day 210.) He doesn't necessarily just throw the money at them and walk away, he talks to them and they can share their stories with him. I just started reading the blog today. Haven't read too much yet but I think it will interesting to read more of people's stories.

Here's the link to the blog, if you want to take a look. http://yearofgiving.org/ He was also featured in an article and if you want to know more about that then go here http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/18/AR2010031805421.html?sid=ST2010031901259

This is from his blog page:
"My goal is not to change the lives of those with whom I come in contact. Let’s face it, $10 dollars is not going to change someone’s life in and of itself. I do believe, however, that the act of giving will hopefully inspire others to pursue the ideals that the French philosopher Auguste Comte envisioned when he coined the term “altruism.” Whether that comes in the form of someone who reads this blog and wants to embark on their own Year of Giving or someone who uses the $10 to help someone else out, the specific results are less important than the overall good that we can achieve together...I hope that you find yourself inspired today to do something special for someone. You would be surprised at how even something as simple as a smile or a thank you can make the difference in someone’s day." (Sandridge, Reed. "Year of Giving." Word Press, 24 Jul 2010. Web. 24 Jul 2010. . )

I can think of some stories of giving from people that I know as well. One example is Munca who got involved with some of the homeless in Florida. He brings them stuff and visits, them and other things. He has told some stories before about his experiences. Another person I can think of who has given is my mom's cousin Lisa. Her son Douglas is on a basketball team and a lot of the other kids on it don't have a lot. She gives them rides places and feeds them and stuff. So the little things can mean a lot too.

I want to be able to make a difference and give to others. I don't know where to start though. It's hard for me to go out of my comfort zone. How do you go up to a total stranger and give them something? Or even more simply just listen to their story. We all have stories to tell. Not everyone has someone to tell them to.

Recap of the last few days

It has been awhile since I have written on here. I posted a video on for video Monday, but that doesn't really count writing wise since I wrote like a couple of sentences. So what have I been up to lately and why haven't I been writing on here? Good question, but the answer is pretty boring and is not a whole lot. I am trying to think of something exciting that happened...

Saturday night I met Cat and Emily at Emily's house and we went to the mall to hang out for awhile, where we met up with Brooke. That was fun. After the mall we went to Burger King. Then we went to the movies, where we saw Eclipse. I was the only one who hadn't seen the movie yet. It was pretty good, sort of long. You could tell more so some of the people who hadn't seen it were the ones who laughed at all the parts you were supposed to laugh at. We sat in the back row. Which was good because then we could wiggle around in seats and not worry about bothering the people behind us. So overall the night was a lot of fun. It's nice to be able to hang out with friends and have a good time.

On Sunday, I went with the family to the lake. (Located in Greenfield.)That was pretty fun. We left around 9:30 and got there a little after 10. We got our spot because we arrived relatively early.(Yes, we have gone there enough by now that we have a favorite spot.) It was good fun. Dad, Spencer, and Sage were able to toss around the football for a little while, while mom and I sat and watched. Later on we had lunch, which was subs, soda, and chips. Then after lunch they all went swimming. Which I didn't do for certain reasons. Then they tossed the football around in the water. I participated some as well. Not too much though since I couldn't go too far out without getting wet from everything. I still ended up getting wet though but it was still fun. I just hope that next time we go I will be able to swim and everything. Later on Sunday we decided to watch The Dark Knight. (Which we own on dvd but never really watched... aside from the fact that I saw it in theaters twice. It was still a good movie. I forgot how long it is. Heath Ledger does a great job as the joker.

Let's see, nothing too exciting happened on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. Those have pretty much been lazy days. One thing that I have done a lot of lately is play The Sims 3. I was all excited when it came out a little over a year ago. When I first got, it I played for awhile and then stopped for months on end. So recently, I think it was Monday or Tuesday, I started playing again and got really in to it. This is good because it gives me something to do. It's funny how time goes by so fast in the game. The sims days can go by in what would probably only be like an hour or so in our time. (It would also depend on what speed you put everything to happen on.)One of the sims 3 families I created ended up having 6 kids. That family has turned into quite a handful. Another family I recently made consisted of a young adult who I wanted to be in the music industry and she is now a rockstar! She got married a little while before that to a nice guy. They now have a kid. (Note to self when making a sim with purple hair, figure in to it that future offspring may also have purple hair.) But anyways, here I am going on like these "people" actually exist.

It's funny though how in some ways the sims is easier than to real life. For example, after you create a sim and move them into a house, they already have 20,000 simoleons. If only life was like that where when you first started out, you earned free money. There is also cheats in the sims. One of the most popular is the cheat for money.

Another thing that I did on Wednesday was parallel parking. My dad set up something up in our driveway. So for a little bit yesterday, he taught me how to parallel park. It will definitely help me in the long run because then I can get closer to getting my license, speaking of which I should probably start studying the driver's manual soon... That way I don't cram it all in last minute.

Today I don't know what I am going to do. I will probably spend some more time practicing parallel parking. I might play the sims 3 some more. Also I might catch up on some of my shows online or read a book. There is a possibility that I might hang out with some friends later tonight or perhaps tomorrow. So that will be something to look forward to.


So here's one of the families from the sims 3. Notice that the mom and toddler have matching purple hair... Not something I planned. When I had her age age up from baby to toddler, the purple hair appeared. So now she's stuck with it. The mother's (Jenna)outfit is a bit too revealing. This is the outfit she wears now that she is a rockstar. Not something I picked... The only normal one in the family seems to be Stiles (the dad).

Video Mondays- Fighting Gravity

This week's Video Monday is inspired by the group Fighting Gravity. They recently tried out for this season of America's Got Talent. They are still in the competition. I think they have a good chance of winning it. They are are unique group. Watch the video below to see what they do.

Video Mondays- Cat Drinking from faucet.

I decided to change Music Video Mondays to Video Mondays. This way I can post any videos and not be limited to just music related ones.

The video for this week is "Cat drinking from faucet.". I saw this on Facebook awhile back. Also I was looking through my favorited videos on youtube and this was one of them.

Recap of trip to Maine

So I haven't posted anything on my blog in a couple days. The last post was from Thursday. The trip to Maine was good. Emily and I went up to visit Andy. He is working at a summer camp in Maine for a good part of the summer. (I found out from him that it costs $10,000 to send your kid there for seven weeks. Wow, that's really expensive.) We headed up there in the early evening. It took less time to get to Portland Maine than we had expected, so that was good.

We stayed at a Comfort Inn. Which we weren't even aware of until we got to it. (Since Andy hadn't informed as of the name of it.) It was all good though because there was a Chili's right next door. So close that we could walk there. After checking in and bringing our stuff to the room, we went next door to Chili's. Chili's was good. I got boneless buffalo wings. We split dessert. One thing that I do think was sort of funny about going out to eat there was when we got our bill. Emily and I had ordered the same things and yet my bill was a penny more than hers. I am not quite sure how that worked out. Maybe it had something to do with tax?

Then we left and decided to go make a quick trip to Hannafords. It was only a couple of minutes away from the motel. It was nice how close together everything was. Then we got back to the motel and hung out there for the night. Where we went on Facebook, watched tv, played Mad Libs, hung out, etc.

The next day we got up packed our stuff, had breakfast, and checked out. Our next destination was Freeport. There was a chance that we might go to the beach, but then we decided not to. Plus Andy wanted to show us around Freeport. We ended up spending a good part of the morning and early afternoon there. It was a cool place. With lots of shops all around most of which were outlets. It was fun to just go walk around and look in stores.

We had lunch at some old tavern place in the area. That was pretty good. I was determined to go to a beading store that I had seen on the map. We made it there eventually. I didn't end up buying anything there. The problem was I really didn't know what I wanted to make or anything. After walking around some more, we ended up leaving Freeport and going back to the motel.

We had all gone together in Andy's jeep and so on the way back he took the top off and everything. So it was extremely windy. But it was still very fun. Cruising down the highway with the tunes blasting and wind blowing in our hair, ahh what fun. Shortly after we got back to the motel, we left to go home.

Overall, the trip was a lot of fun. I was glad that it was able to work out. I wish that I had taken more pictures, oh well it is what it is.

Emily- She is ready for some fun.


Andy- Looking very happy.


Me- Looking miserable. It was a lot of fun though.

Finally Thursday!!

So it is finally Thursday!! The day that I have been waiting for. Emily and I are heading to Maine in a little while. We are going to go up and meet Andy, who has been working at a summer camp. We are going to stay over night at a hotel and hang out. Tomorrow will be fun too because we might go to the beach while we're up there. It will be nice to hang out with both of them. I haven't seen Andy in a really long time.

It will be nice to get away, even if it's just for a day. I need to remember to take my camera and take pictures. Oh, and videos are always fun too. That way I can eventually make another slideshow in like 5 years. Plus it's just nice to be able to take lots of pictures of all the fun times. That way you can look back on them and smile.

The place is somewhere in Portland. I am not sure of the name. No one told me, but Emily has the address so all is good. The cost for staying there for one night is only $109. So that's not too bad. About $36 a piece. Plus it has a pool and hot tub.

I'm sure it will be fun. So I am going to go pack now. Which shouldn't take long since it's only for like a day.

Procrastination- Enough is enough already!

There are so many things that I have put of doing in my life. The biggest would have to be getting my license. I still don’t have my license and I’m already 19 years old. Most teens get their licenses right away. You could say that it’s the highlight of turning 16. In a way it represents being free. When you have a license you can go places when you want and it’s up to you. (Well you need a car to do that too, but you know what I mean.)

No more having to rely on other people to get you from point a to point b. I am still stuck having to rely on other people. It makes me feel bad sometimes to have to ask them. But when you don’t have your license there isn’t much that can be done. It’s even worse having to rely on my parents for rides. They don’t always feel like taking me places either. And who can blame them that can get annoying pretty quick. There have been times when people have asked me if I had gotten my license yet. I hate having to tell them that no, I do not have it yet.

In the beginning when I put off getting it, my parents were all oh it’s our fault too. But honestly, it’s not their fault. It’s my fault and that’s something that I need to get over. My mother will say from time to time that I should be begging her to let me drive. (What kind of teenager am I?) There were times when she had to beg me to drive. That is how out of hand it has gotten. Other times I would downright refuse. Which one could say doesn’t make that much sense since I should be begging to get in the driving.

I did attempt to get my license once a few summers ago. I think it was the summer that I was going into 12th grade. I was by no means prepared to go in and do the actual driving part.(I passed the written part.) I was extremely nervous and did not do many things well enough. One big thing is parallel parking. Oh man, I could not do that if my life depended on it.

There have even been times recently when I refused to drive. This is silly because some of the times that that happened had been areas that I was familiar with. Why? I am an okay driver, don’t get me wrong. I just seem to be lacking all of the confidence that I need. Plus, I still need to work on some areas.

My goal for myself is to go in and get my license at the end of the month. I am going to try to drive every chance I get. This is something that needs to get done. It has been something that has been holding me back far too long. I want to be able to drive myself places. (Plus I need to in order to continue college in the fall.) To finally have the freedom that comes with that. And to let go of the things that have been holding me back.