Causes Worth Supporting: Hospice

Photo courtesy of Tennessee Hospice Organization

This week I think it's time we looked at supporting an organization that has been there for most of our families at one time or another: Hospice. The Hospice organizations around the country do some of the most beautiful work in healthcare. They make everyone as comfortable as possible in their last months, weeks, or days - and give their patients as much dignity and respect as they deserve. I have experienced family losses many times with Hospice's presence and I volunteered with the local Hospice while I was in high school. This is an organization that not only cares for the patient, but the entire family. The nurses are as caring and sweet as you could ever imagine, and grief counseling is offered for each family to help them through their grieving for a over a year after the loss. Hospice Houses offer a wonderful location to stay for patients that cannot or do not wish to live out their days at home, still giving all members of the family the familiar comforts of a home whenever possible. 

Hospice relies on donations (linked to our local Hospice in Cleveland) to continually offer their services to any qualifying patient regardless of their situation or ability to pay. This is a great kindness when you consider the monumental costs of aging, painkillers - medications in general, and most chronic or incurable conditions. Not to mention the numerous services that Hospice workers provide directly to the families of those in their care. 

 In the field of cinema, there have been some wonderful films that teach us about valuing life for its temporality while showing the beauty that is the succinct existence of a human life. One of my very favorite films does just that in a beautifully, utterly magical way - and that film is Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. I won't tell you anything about the story, though I will share this one quote that illustrates a piece of why I love the film so much. Before I share that though - let's try to remember to support those who support us in our times of greatest needs, alright? They more than deserve it.

 

Causes Worth Supporting: Your Family

Photo credit to the amazing Lauren K. Photography of Cleveland

This week's Cause Worth Supporting is a simple one that not many of us think about. We forget how important it is to support ourselves and our families, to make effort and sacrifice for the betterment of their future - to invest in ourselves! So today it's all about how you can support your family by saving more, spending less, and paying off debts as quickly as you can to become debt free!

My husband and I have been in debt since we got married (we both came into the marriage with debt from college - his credit cards, mine student loans) and it's only snowballed as the years have passed. I have made a lot of progress on our little mountain in the last year using Dave Ramsey's Snowball Method and paid off about $8,000 worth of debt (in total we probably have around $120,000 - though the majority of that belongs to my student loans and the car we purchased last year and make payments on each month). So while things like that are on hold and we're burning through what little savings I held built for us - a lesson learned that won't ever be forgotten - I'm working to eliminate any extraneous spending (which is really hard sometimes) and do what we can to keep all of our bills current.

What you see up there is Dave Ramey's Baby Steps to becoming debt free. For at least the next few years Step 6 won't apply to us except that we'll be saving for a home in our future. Regardless, this is the pattern I follow for our goals (steps 1-3 in particular). When I was working on our savings and debt last year, I would take a few hundred dollars of our flex paycheck each month (the first paycheck was devoted to almost all of our bills, the second would be focused on debts and other needs) and put it towards paying off some of our debts (while paying minimum amounts on our other debts/bills). Another $100 would get put into our savings account and then I had a little cash savings I was building at home that I would add to any time I went shopping at Target or to buy groceries by getting $10 or $20 cash back and just taking straight home to the little billfold I was keeping it in. When things were going according to plan, I could save $2-300 a month. I'll be honest, that didn't happen for as long as it should have and it several times would get spent on minor emergencies or needs - hey, we've got kids and they need some pretty expensive stuff sometimes. Anyway, that's how things were and we'll return to that style again when we're back on our feet. My husband and I have also agreed we're going to try out the cash envelope concept from Dave Ramsey (can you tell I'm a fan?) and I'm also considering the idea of opening a savings account at a different bank from The Nester - or just a different account than our usual savings - so that your savings don't get touched as easily as when they're attached to your checking account.

Below are a few other links I've found in the last couple years that I really found helpful or interesting about paying off debt, managing finances, and/or savings -

A Starter Post for Saving Money Tips & Couponing

'And Then We Saved' - a great blog on becoming financially solvent

The Spending Diet from ATWS - or the more intense & quickly successful Spending Fast

All Hail the Life Changing Ecstasy of a Home Management Binder
 *a note on the HMB - there are a thousand different styles and free printables for these available on the web (just search it on Pinterest and you'll be set for life really). I've used one for a couple years and it's insanely helpful. Invest the time to set it up right and you'll love having everything all in one place!

Enjoy your day and your family, everyone. Here's to a 2014 where we all get a little closer to being debt free and having the life we want!

27 Acts of Kindness

Yay I'm finally writing what you've all been waiting for since Monday ended! I spend my 27th birthday doing 27 random acts of kindness - 28 actually....one to grow on. It was truly an amazing experience and my best birthday to date. I'll be doing this for my birthday every year from now on I think. The list I wrote out to plan our acts for the day had some changes, but I did replace them with other acts as we went. It's best to go with the flow in these situations. This is going to be a long post, so - here we go!

Fruitful living - loving others.

Monday's acts of kindness were one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. I'd been thinking about what I would write for this week's post so that I could write about focusing on loving others after focusing on loving my kids last week (more about that in a minute). I realized Monday that the most beautiful of all the things we did was when I was able to feed 3 different homeless men a little lunch. Not as much as I would like to have, but it was food none the less and they were so incredibly grateful it broke my heart. All day I was focused on sending out as much love towards others as I could and trying to make others feel happier. It made me happy as well as my sister, and ended up being one of the best things I've ever done. I decided that I'm going to do my best to try and go once a week to visit with and feed a few homeless people in town - I wish I could feed them all and even do so much more, but I know that I can do at least this little thing. I don't think after having talked with those men this week and seeing their faces as I gave them sandwiches that I could ever stand to go another week without trying to help ease their pain and troubles in some way. So, this week's post about loving others....it's not a post about how I'm going to focus on something for a week... it's a post about how I did something on my birthday that changed my life and my perspective.

Regarding last week and my focus on loving my sons - I wasn't too great at the whole yelling less concept, but hey - they're 1 and 3 years old. It's hard to make it through an hour much less a day without having to raise your voice so they stop doing something they shouldn't (such as hitting/shoving each other, or climbing on top of tables, or trying to play with the burning fireplace...). I did, however, enjoy them more. I spent time smelling their hair (a favorite past time), holding hands and playing and trying to focus on how amazing they've become already. It was great and definitely made the week go by more cheerily.

Here's to all of you finding a way to show more love to those around you - be they family, friends, or strangers in need. Everyone needs some love. Do what you can to share some. Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Causes Worth Supporting: Tiny Superheroes

(image from tinysuperheroes.com) 

Welcome to the first Causes Worth Supporting post of 2014! Today I wanted to start the year off with a beautiful cause I heard about over the holidays, and really I just can't get over how much I admire this woman and her family's efforts. Tiny Superheroes was created by a woman named Robyn who decided that children facing, fighting, and overcoming illnesses and disabilities need to be empowered. They need to be recognized for how amazing and truly extraordinary they are. These children exhibit *super* powers that many adults couldn't even handle flourishing under the weight of. Since the beginning of 2013, Robyn and her family have made around 3,500 capes for tiny superheroes all over the world. What an amazing thing to spend your money on! You can buy a cape for a tiny superhero waiting for a way to show the world how spectacular they are, you can buy t-shirts to show your support and help raise awareness, or you can buy an Ambassador Kit and receive a t-shirt, a tote bag, 15 Tiny Superhero bracelets to give out to friends and family, and 30 Superhero Squad cards featuring some of the many Tiny Superheroes and telling you about their story!

My son, Owen, is turning three later this month and we recently decided that we're doing a superhero themed party for him (he's in love with Superman & Batman). Since he received more presents at Christmas than he even remotely needed, we've decided to tell those interested in giving him gifts for his birthday to consider supporting Tiny Superheroes in his honor. I have always loved the idea of letting the boys grow up knowing that gifts are not the most important part of holidays or birthdays and teaching them to focus on the family and friends who love them. This is a great start to that tradition I think - I'll be sure to post later this month about how the party went!

Head over and take a look at the Tiny Superhero website or Facebook page. Buy a cape or become an ambassador. I'm sure you'll be glad you did.

 

(image from tinysuperheroes.com)

R.A.C.K. Wrap Up

So Christmas has passed and I've finished my R.A.C.K. It was definitely a different experience than I'd originally planned, and I hope to be able to stick more closely to my preplanned R.A.C.K. activities in the future, but it was nonetheless meaningful to me. I spent the season caring for others' needs and doing what I could to brighten someone else's day. I gave compliments to strangers, had sweet conversations with passerby, gave gifts to those I could, left notes of gratitude and good tidings around for those serving me as well as people who randomly found them, and several other things just generally hoping to remind everyone that this season is truly about us loving each other, not getting so caught up in commercialized commitments and traditions that we actually forget what we were meant to focus on. It was a wonderful activity and I look forward to doing it every Christmas with my family!

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday! We've spent a great week with my family so far and are still enjoying the great quality time. It truly is a wonderful life. Tomorrow being New Year's Eve I'll be writing a post telling you my resolutions for 2014, where 2013 has brought me, and where the blog will be headed in the new year as well!

R.A.C.K. Update #2

Another week of R.A.C.K. has passed, and this week has been again family focused acts for me. We had a loss at the very beginning of this week, so I have spent most of my time trying to keep my sons out of everyone's hair but also trying to provide everyone with what they need. Since I'm southern, a lot of food was involved. A chicken pot pie, a cheesecake, some pasta salad... what can I say, when things get stressful and upsetting, I've been trained to cook. Other than fattening people up, there's been a lot of effort to comfort those around me in whatever way I could. Holding lipsticks, giving bear hugs, and generally being there for my family. It wasn't my original plan for R.A.C.K., however, apparently God had something else planned for me.

Today we leave Minnesota to make a drive down to Florida and spend some time with my family back home so I think my R.A.C.K.'s for the coming week will involve more strangers this week. Hoping all of you who are traveling like us this weekend make it to your destinations safe and sound, enjoy your weekend!

Causes Worth Supporting: Toys for Tots

In 1947, Toys for Tots was founded by Major Bill Hendricks, USMCR to bring toys to less fortunate children in the Los Angeles area. In 1948, the Marine Corps adopted Toys for Tots and expanded the program to become a national effort. Walt Disney designed the famous train logo and it has ever since been a yearly tradition for citizens who are able to help children in need to enjoy and experience the joy of Christmas.

Over the last 66 years, many celebrities have endorsed Toys for Tots: Mickey Mouse, Bob Hope, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Andy Griffith, Doris Day, Brooke Shields, Nancy Reagan, and Barbara Bush - to name a few.

In 1992, the Toys for Tots Foundation provided over 2.5 million toys to children in Florida and Louisiana who were victims of Hurricane Andrew. In 2001, special events were held for the children who lost a parent in the September 11th terrorist attacks. Forbes has named Toys for Tots as one of the top 10 charities on the Forbes 'Gold Stat' list. Most recently in 2012, the foundation provided more than 7 million children with almost 16.8 million toys!

There are few holiday charities as great as the USMCR Toys for Tots Foundation in my opinion. You can find your local drive information here or you can read on their site about donating funds by selling items on Ebay, donating a car or vehicle, or simply donating a few dollars directly to the foundation.

Hopefully you've been able to contribute a toy or two to your local drive already, but if not - do what you can to try and help! You can also follow the foundation's Facebook page to find out other ways to help! For instance, they posted recently that Walgreens & Duracell have partnered together this season to promise that for every package of Duracell batteries purchased at a participating Walgreens, Duracell will donate two batteries to Toys for Tots!

It's so wonderful to help children feel the joy and wonder of Christmas - find out about how you can help that happen!

How Easily Forgotten..

I'm writing this post after observing, once again, how quickly people make the jump to meanness, cruelty, and anger. Since this blog is named after a well-known call for kindness and respect, I think that this needs to be written about. (If you haven't caught on yet, by the way, the Law of Bambi is from Thumper's family motto, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.")

I think it's safe to say at this point that most of us, if not all of us, have seen an instance of discussions or debates in a public forum turning into inappropriate bullying and cruelty. Apparently we as adults have not ever moved past high school social politics. It's everywhere. Blog comments, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are all breeding grounds of this kind of behavior. For some reason the anonymity of the internet has allowed us all to turn into the worst versions of ourselves. And worse still, we even do it to people we actually know. Disagreements are no longer simple and respectful - they're cause for drawn out arguments which resolve nothing and simply open the floodgates for horrible comments. I regularly see people telling others to kill themselves (sometimes graphically and specifically) or that they aren't worth anything...I could go on and on. Sometimes it's as simple as repeatedly pointing out someone's physical faults and how ugly they are in comparison. All of this done in huge amounts to people of all ages, by people of all ages. It has to stop.

We have to stop acting like this is okay. There's no excuse for this kind of rudeness and cruelty to be happening. We all get defensive and angry when it happens to us or our loved ones, but then in the same day can turn around and do the same thing to someone else! It's not okay at all - it's not defensible in any situation. Making any exceptions for this behavior makes exceptions for all of it!

It doesn't matter if the topic is a 'sensitive topic' like politics, religion, or social policy - there is no reason to make a discussion an exercise in verbal abuse. No one deserves to be told these things - and we should all be ashamed of ourselves for saying them. If you can't keep a discussion respectful then you should not engage in them.

And we need to stop this practice of assuming that everything needs to be a debate if it's in a public forum. We defend that our Facebook's and social media accounts should be free from judgement by employers and outsiders, but then insist that everyone should only post their opinions on their own accounts only if they're ready for those who disagree to start an argument? Why? Why does everyone have to engage in informing others that they're opinion is somehow wrong? Maybe this is why our Congress is having so much trouble working together - because we as a country can't do it either.

We need to recognize what we're really saying to people. We need to remember how to respectfully disagree, and recognize that we don't need to make everything a crusade to share an opposing opinion just because you can. Keep your opinions on your own accounts, or discuss them in the proper way without making things personal or abusive.

This is not what our parents raised us to do... at least not mine, or most of the parents I've known in my life. And none of us are innocent.

R.A.C.K. Update

Well, the first 12 days have passed and while I have had to change my original plans for the days' assignments, I've still done what I could to do a Random Act of (Christmas) Kindness each day. Due to a lot of things going on here in the personal life, my R.A.C.K.'s have been more family centered instead of stranger centered. I've cleaned the house we're staying in, shoveled walks, decorated for Christmas, baked cookies to raise spirits, brought groceries to family, cooked meals, done laundry, written a letter telling someone how much they have meant to my life and a few other things. I still plan on some of the bigger assignments I'd originally chosen, however due to personal constraints right now, the days are just being shuffled from the original schedule.

Hoping you're all having a wonderful and mindful December so far - enjoy your weekend! Here are a couple fun links for you, Happy Friday, all!

Kid President Shares Your 'Things We Should Say More Often'

A Basic Wine Guide

World War II Today

Mentality Monday #2

So yesterday was Monday, I realize. I have trouble with keeping my days straight lately. That being said, here's you're Mentality Monday quote! Have a wonderful and heartfelt week, everyone!

December 1st means R.A.C.K.!

Last year I read a few different blog posts via Pinterest about a great concept used to celebrate the Christmas season and Advent called R.A.C.K. - Random Acts of Christmas Kindness. It's really a simple concept with huge payoffs for everyone involved. Each day a random act of kindness is assigned and then you perform the tasks throughout the month up to and including Christmas day! Today I started mine and I'm excited to go through the month bringing smiles to peoples faces. 

I got a few packages of simple paper treat bags and numbered them (when we get home from our Thanksgiving trip next week I'll hang them as a kind of advent calendar). Each day I'll pull the task out of the bag and go forward getting it done! I think that this will be a great tradition for us to do every year to keep Christmas as a holiday of compassion and love instead of "wants" and commercialism. Throughout the month I'll post and share with you how my R.A.C.K. is going and I'll post pictures to share various activities as well. The first picture above is going with candy canes to be taped to ATM's around town, and below I've been working on Christmas cards to hand out to a local nursing home with some gifts and crafts we'll be making this week. 

Happy Monday, everyone. Enjoy your first week of December wherever you are!