100 acts of kindness – Page 2

Act of kindness #28: A Valentine’s rose

Happy Valentine’s Day!

And Happy International Random Act of Kindness Week!

What a perfect opportunity to spread some love-filled kindness.

As it’s the school holidays, I have the sweetest little helper in the form of my 4-year-old nephew, Thomas.

Could this day get any better!

And as it’s Valentine’s Day, I thought it would be a lovely idea to give a few flowers to strangers to show them some love and make them smile.

Last week, I approached our local florist, Kerry’s Florist, to see if they would be interested in donating a few flowers for the occasion.

And even though it’s most probably their busiest day of the year, they said YES!

WooHooo!!

So, yesterday I collected 20 gorgeous red roses, and was really touched to see that the lovely Kerry and Shania had wrapped every single rose beautifully.

I attached one of my Kindness Cards to each rose with the message: “Happy Valentine’s Day: You are AMAZING. Kindly donated by ‘Kerry’s Florist’ to celebrate RAK Week.”

Earlier this morning, my little helper and I happily made our way down to our local GP surgery. Here’s a little video I made of us.

And we had the loveliest time placing our Valentine’s surprises on car windscreens.

We even had the chance to give a few people coming out of the doctor’s surgery a Valentine’s rose in person.

It was touching to see Thomas happily handing each person a red rose, and most of the recipients seemed really touched. One lady in particular had tears in her eyes, and it was clear we’d really made her day. We both gave her a big hug.

We hope that the flowers are a LOVEly surprise for all the car owners when they return to their vehicles after their Doctor’s appointment.

And we really hope our little act of kindness will make them smile and feel a little bit better and brighter, especially on this love-filled day.

☆♡☆

ps if you have received one of our Valentine’s red roses, I’d really LOVE to hear from you in the comments below (and if you’d prefer me not to publish your comment on the blog, please do let me know).

pps Huge thanks again to the big-hearted Kerry and Shania at Kerry’s Florist for generously donating the roses and wrapping them so beautifully. You are both AMAZING.

Act of kindness #27: Lotto luck

Day 23 of my Kindness Advent Calendar is to “buy a lottery ticket and give it to a friend, loved one or stranger”.

So this morning I bought a few lottery scratch cards and popped them in a bag along with a little chocolate bar and one of my Kindness Cards with the message: “I hope this brings you a little lottery luck! Merry Christmas.”

I then randomly placed them on windscreens of cars parked in my local town.

I really hope they bring someone a little lottery luck this Christmas.

☆♡☆

Act of kindness #26: Food bank donation

I’ve been really looking forward to doing this act of kindness, which is Day 3 on my Kindness Advent Calendar.

I received one of my own a few years ago when I was really struggling financially, whilst living in Germany. My kind and thoughtful sister filled a box full of my favourite food and gave it to me on one of my visits home. I’ll never forget how touched I was and can honestly say it remains one of the most memorable gifts I’ve ever received.

And so, I’m really excited to be ‘paying it forward’ by preparing a box of my own for a family in need over the festive season.

I wanted to give a family supplies for each meal of the day and snacks in between. Of course they need to be non-perishable items, which I thought would be a little challenging for me as I’m a big fresh food lover, but I think I did ok… here’s what’s in my box:

Kicking off the day with cereal and a cuppa tea; lunch could be a flavourful tin of soup; for an afternoon snack I’ve put in a packet of tasty biscuits; for dinner there’s a choice of rice or pasta with tinned veggies, tinned tomatoes or baked beans, and tuna; for pudding there’s a tin of fresh fruit which can be served with a tin of custard; and finally, for an evening treat there’s some yummy chocolates to be washed down with another cuppa!

I’m going to pop by box down to my local food bank today. I really hope it helps brighten a family’s Christmas.

☆♡☆

ps I’ve made a little video of what’s in my box, if you’d like to take a peek, please click here 🙂

Act of kindness #25: Celebrating World Kindness Day

Happy World Kindness Day!

There’s been a huge ripple effect of kindness on social media these past few days leading up to today’s World Kindness Day. And I have to confess I’m feeling very excited about it.

I loved making up my World Kindness Day Goody Bags and placing them on cars in the hospital car park on Friday, and I’m ecstatic about the positive reaction to my Kindness Advent Calendar I posted yesterday (at the time of writing over 250 kindness warriors have downloaded it already, woohooo!!)

So it’s no surprise that due to my limited energy from the CFS, I’m feeling pretty wiped out today. I have a family birthday dinner to go to shortly, but really wanted to do just one more kindness act in honour of #WorldKindnessDay.

So today’s is a simple one.

I wanted to enjoy today’s gorgeous sunshine and autumn colours so took a gentle soul stroll down to our local shops.

And I bought this cheerful autumn bunch of flowers.

I thought I’d split the flowers and place a single flower onto windscreens of cars parked at the restaurant. And to each flower, I’ve attached one of my kindness cards with the message: Celebrating World Kindness Day – Sun 13th Nov.

And I decided to take my own advice and be kind to myself as well. So I treated myself to the same colourful bunch of flowers… I know they’ll keep me smiling all week long.

I also wrote a happy message on the back of one of my kindness cards and will stick it onto the restaurant’s bathroom mirror for everyone to enjoy.

And this message is for you too 🙂

☆♡☆

p.s. If you found one of my kindness flowers, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below…

Act of kindness #24: Kindness Advent Calendar (2016)

It’s almost that time of year again… time to spread a little festive kindness.

My Kindness Advent Calendar works just like a normal advent calendar but instead of the usual chocolate countdown, we are embracing the true spirit of Christmas by doing 25 random acts of Christmas kindness.

How cool is that 🙂

I was wonderfully surprised and deeply thrilled that last year’s Kindness Advent Calendar (2015) was so well received.With just over 200 downloads, I’d like to give a huge, heartfelt thank you to everyone who took part.

I guarantee that your acts of kindness made a difference and brightened someone else’s day.

☆ You are AMAZING ☆

So again, I’d like to invite lovely you and yours to join me spreading a little kindness by doing small acts kindness leading up to Christmas Day.

Here’s this year’s Kindness Advent Calendar:

To download your free copy, please click on this link Kindness-Advent-Calendar-2016-PDF.pdf (1711343 downloads) .

Now, I know December is an extra busy month for most of us, and we can find ourselves rushing around trying to get everything ready in time for the Christmas holidays.

So with that in mind, I’ve made each kindness act:
1. Quick
2. Easy
3. Cheap (or mostly free!)

This way, anyone and everyone can take part.

You may want to mix it up and swap the acts around, or even create your own kindness acts. And don’t worry if you can’t do an act of kindness every single day, sometimes it’s just not possible as I know too well with the nature of my CFS flare ups.

But even if every one of us manages to do just one kindness act on one day – imagine how amazing that would be!

It’s such a wonderful way to spread some festive cheer and boost our own spirits at the same time.

But I really need your help.

Please help me spread the word by encouraging family, friends, colleagues and neighbours to take part in this kindness extravaganza as we countdown to Christmas.

I’d be ever so grateful if you could share this blog post with others – simply click on one of the ‘share’ buttons below, or share it however works best for you – and let’s get the kindness ripple effect reaching out far and wide over the festive season.

I’d also love it if we all share our Random Acts of Christmas Kindness experiences with others on my Spreading a little kindness Facebook page.

JUST ADDED: A few clever folk have suggested I get onto Twitter to help keep the kindness ripple effect spreading further and further. I’m a complete novice, but have set up the hashtags #KindnessAdventCalendar and #ChristmasKindness so we can share our festive kindness fun. You can find me on Twitter here.

But most of all, remember to HAVE FUN and enjoy creating a kindness ripple effect in your community.

Thank you so very much.

☆♡☆

To download your free copy of my Kindness Advent Calendar, please click on this link: Kindness-Advent-Calendar-2016-PDF.pdf (1711343 downloads)

☆♡☆

p.s. I’d love to hear about your kindness experiences in the comments below…

Act of kindness #23: World Kindness Day Goody Bags

Sunday 13th November is World Kindness Day, and wouldn’t it be truly wonderful if we all could spread a little more kindness around our homes and communities on this day. Especially with all this unrest we are currently facing.

I’d hoped to do a really big kindness act to celebrate this special day, like walk around my home city offering free hugs, or something where I could invite the local media to get involved.

But sadly it’s not possible this year as I’m still struggling a little from my recent CFS relapse and also have family commitments on Sunday.

So I see this as a fantastic excuse to get in early by digging out my fabulous kindness goody bags, filling them with fun and yummy goodies, and giving them to unsuspecting strangers.

Yippeeeee!

This will be my fourth RAOK featuring these little bags of joy (the others were at Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Easter). These bags are filled with a fun ‘noise-maker’ toy, a ‘you are AMAZING’ postcard, a few stickers, a mini chocolate bar, and a couple of sweeties.

I also added one of my Kindness Cards with a simple message to celebrate World Kindness Day.

Today, I headed down to our local hospital and popped my World Kindness Day Goody Bags onto the windscreens of cars parked in the hospital car park. I’m thinking that the recipients will have been visiting a friend or loved one, have had a hospital appointment or even a hospital stay.

I even made my first RAOK video if you fancy a giggle…

It’s my first try so please be kind 🙂

I really really love doing these kinds of ROAK, they bring me huge joy. And I hope with all my heart that the recipients of my goody bags smile as much as I’m smiling right now.

☆♡☆

p.s If you found a World Kindness Day Goody Bag on your car, I’d really love to hear from you in the comments below…

Act of kindness #22: Thank you, Teacher!

As part of my kindness mission, I wanted to write a thank you note to the teacher who made the biggest impression on me.

And I immediately thought of Dr Anna Powell.

Anna was one of my lecturers at uni and made a huge impression on me. I always really looked forward to her classes and found her enthusiasm, knowledge and content, inspiring, engaging and hugely enjoyable.

In fact, I wish I could still attend her lectures today, over 20 years on!

She believed in me and encouraged me, and for that I will always be deeply grateful.

So, I wrote a thank you message on the back of one of my ‘You are AMAZING’ postcards and sent it off today. Thankfully she’s still at the same university, so was really easy to find.

I hope it’s a nice surprise and a reminder of how much what she does matters.

☆♡☆

Act of kindness #21: Rosey smiles

Due to my recent CFS relapse, it’s been quite a while since I’ve been able to post about my kindness acts. But I’m happy to say that I’ve still been doing whatever I can, I just haven’t the energy to write about them.

Sooooooo, I’m really excited about today’s – especially as it’s a new kindness act for me.

Hooray!

One of my favourite kindness acts is making up and leaving goody bags on cars parked at my local GP surgery (Christmas) or hospital (Valentine’s), and this time I thought I’d mix it up a little and leave a flower.

As my budget is really tight, I bought this gorgeous bunch of bright orange roses and decided to spread the love even further by splitting them. That way I can make 10 people smile instead of just the one.

I made up this little ditty to write on the back of my kindness cards:

“I hope you enjoy this flower,
as a gift from me to you.
I hope it makes you smile,
and makes your day happy too!”

(I know it’ll never make the The TS Eliot Prize shortlist, but hopefully it’s cheesy enough to make the recipient smile 🙂 )

I tied a kindness card to each flower, and tucked each stem neatly through the door handle of the cars – in the past I’ve placed the bags on the windscreen, but just in case the driver doesn’t see it before driving off, I don’t want it to cause an accident! So this way the driver will see the flower straight away!

I also gave one to a lovely elderly gentlemen who was leaving the surgery. As I handed him a ‘kindness flower’ he gave me a cheeky smile and asked: “Do I get a kiss as well?” Of course, I obliged 🙂 It was a touching and heartwarming moment.

As I’d written 7 Kindness Cards, I had 3 roses left, the perfect number to be able to drop one off at my sister’s, give one to my mum for helping me, and keep one for myself as it’ll be a lovely reminder and also, it’s important to be kind to ourselves ♡

Here’s really hoping the flowers made a few folk smile today as much as I am smiling right now.

☆♡☆

p.s If you found a flower on your car, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below…

Act of kindness #20: Library book messages II

I had so much fun sneakily hiding kindness messages inside library books last week, that I want to do the same again (and again and again!).

And today I got my chance as I needed to go to my health food shop in a different town.

Armed with a new set of messages written on the back of my kindness cards, I sought out their library and stealthily got to work.

Imagine my delight when I came across a book called: One Small Act of Kindness. Of course, I couldn’t resist popping one of my kindness messages inside 🙂

I love doing this act of kindness so much, I think I’ll seek out libraries whenever and wherever I can, and hide more kindness messages for folk to find.

I really hope the next reader of each of these books finds it a nice surprise when they come across my message.

☆♡☆

P.S. If you have found one of my messages, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below ♡

Act of kindness #19: Library book messages

My town’s lovely 150 year old library reopened yesterday after 6 months of construction work.

I thought I’d celebrate by spreading a little kindness to strangers by sneakily hiding some kindness messages inside a few library books.

I had already written a mixture of messages on the backs of my kindness cards before I set off:

As I chose the books to hide the messages inside, including a couple on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I couldn’t help feeling happy and excited at the thought of surprising the next readers as they turn the page and come across the message.

I really hopes it makes them smile 🙂

☆♡☆

ps If you found one of my messages, I’d love to hear from you ♡