Ooooooh! It Felt So Good!

My little sister and I had a date today.
We try to do that every once in a while, just to catch up. I bore her with repeated details of my glamorous life as a mother of two, a wife, and a kindergarten teacher. She recounts dull facts about her new job as an assistant manager for events at a large corporation, where she will be traveling to places like New York and Miami and attending ho hum events like the Grammys.

My point?
We have very little in common.

Except that we were both raised by the same neurotic yet loving Polish-immigrant parents.

The result?
She chews her fingernails and I rock back and forth in public.

She inhales bags of Doritos and weighs less than my two boys put together.
I watch her inhale a bag of Doritos and I gain ten pounds.

But today we did something awesome. Something that we both enjoyed. Something that made us higher than kites on a windy day in the sweet suburbs of Orange County, California.

Today we drove to the local Children’s Hospital with anticipation and parked her unassuming Volvo in a quiet spot. We snuck out of the car and giggled like school kids as we placed twenty California Lotto Scratchers on twenty cars. We attached a note entitled “A Random Act of Kindness” and as we passed each other in the parking lot we felt empowered and good and connected to everyone who drove those cars. We knew the odds of anyone winning millions was small (that’s why we didn’t leave our full names and addresses on the cards….) but we also knew the odds of putting a smile on someone’s face were great. Our note urged our recipients to pass on the good deed by doing something nice for someone else. It was so contagious and euphoric and we have already begun to plan something for next weekend.

Now, I'm not sharing this with you to toot my own horn, or to give you one more example of why I'm so wonderful. I'm sharing this with you so that maybe you'll get off your cute hiney and participate in this movement. It doesn't even have to cost anything. I swear.

Visit www.actsofkindness.org for information on how easy it is to change the world.

One Hug.
One Handshake.
One parking spot.
One compliment.

One lotto ticket……… at a time.