On Friday, Nathan and I drove to San Diego to pick up our three younger boys from their grandparents' house. We stopped at Taco Bell for dinner, and sitting outside was a scraggly looking homeless man. Once we got inside I asked Nathan if we could buy him some food as our act of kindness, to which he replied, "yes." We both used the restroom and when I cam out Nathan was already in line. He hugged me and whispered into my ear, "He's a drug dealer."
Yes, my homeless man was not homeless. Nathan had witnessed a drug deal while he was waiting on me. Needless to say, he was not my act of kindness that day.
Instead, we went with my original plan which was to give some gifts to the boys' grandparents. Ex-inlaws are not always the easiest to deal with, but we are grateful for their love of the boys.
On Saturday, we stopped in Las Vegas on the way back to Utah and had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was the boys' first time to eat there, and they had a blast! Our waitress, Ronnie, was simply wonderful, and she proceeded to arm wrestle all of the boys and let them win. So we tipped her 30% as our act of kindness.
Sunday found us all in bed recovering from our quick trip out to California (and for me and Nathan, we were still grieving for our puppy, who we had to give away). We had Christmas with the boys the night before and they received Nerf guns from Santa (their first EVER!). They destroyed our house on reinacting xbox games with their guns (Nathan helped). And I let them. Normally, it would drive me crazy! But I ignored the chaos and let them have fun as my act of kindness. In the end, it worked out well because Nathan gave me an act of kindness by cleaning up the chaos!
I made dinner for my family on Monday, which was New Year's Eve. Nathan and I had such crazy work schedules before the holiday break that family dinner didn't happen much. It was basically "fend for yourself" most every night. So me making dinner was actually a big deal. We had cheese tortellina and spinach ravioli with broccoli and parmesan garlic toast. I made sodas with our Soda Stream and then we watched Jeff Dunham.
Today (Tuesday) was focused on cleaning our house. Nathan and I tackled most of it, with our 9 year old helping. The only thing of note I have is that I texted my good friend Nikki to wish her a happy birthday. It's not much, but it's outside of my family and hopefully it made her day better. I also upload music to my boys' iPod Shuffles they got from my father for Christmas, but I've already served my family twice this week so it doesn't count for my challenge.
I have realized that it is hard sometimes to come up with an act of kindness that is outside of my family. Especially with the holidays...we are spending much more time together and I'm not at work or out much. That said, my acts of kindness to my family are probably the most important ones I can do.
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