R.A.C.K.

This year I stumbled on a blog that this lady had wrote about how her family does Random Acts of Christmas Kindness and it struck a cord with me. She uses it as a way to show her daughters,

"about loving others and in the process, sharing God’s love for others."

What she does is for every day of Advent her family does a different act of kindness. Here's a list of things she's done in the past.

• Taping candy canes to ATM machines around town
• Bringing the girls riding instructor {and barn manager} hot cocoa and a muffin early one morning
• Taping quarters to vending and toy machines around town
• Grocery shopping for the sole purpose of putting it in the “Food for Families” box in the entryway of the store
• Plugging meters around town {and lots of fun explaining to the girls what “plugging” a meter meant!}
• Donating 72 stockings with treats, candy and a craft for second graders at a school in need
• Ringing Salvation Army bells
• Handing out Starbucks gift cards {$5.00 value each}
• Paid past due library fees for 5 people
• Donated a poinsettia to the girls school
• Bought and donated toys for “Toys 4 Tots”
• Brought the girls teachers their favorite Starbucks drinks
• Brought treats to the employees of our local Post Office branch
• Purged from the girls personal “library” and donated to a school library in need

The woman who's blog I found actually stole the idea from another blogger who's website.

Anyway, the idea has really hit home with me and made me want to try to do something similar. I don't have the resources to do all of the things she talked about so I've decided on doing my own Random Acts of Christmas Kindness. This year Daniel and I are going to buy 20 $5 gas or grocery gift cards and mail them in Christmas cards to people. I settled on the gas or grocery cards because I'm a shade more practical then Starbucks and it's something you know people need. $5 might not buy much but it might help a person out. We decided on mailing them because as I was talking to Daniel about this we pasted this older lady at her mail box and I could tell all her mail was bills and it made me think, "I wonder when was the last time that lady received a nice card in the mail?". When was the last time someone mailed you a card randomly? I send and receive cards at Christmas but outside of that my mail is all junk. So on December 10th our little R.A.C.K. Christmas cards will be send out into the world. And no you wont be getting one. =)

Things I'm loving right now

So I'm like in love with two new things right now.


1) Pinterest- OMG. I've been in love with this site since I got an invite. It's like an online pin board. You can save photo's of anything found online to different boards. I have ones for home, clothes, places, Daniel and even Lottie. It's amazing because sometime I'll see something I like and when I go to look for it again I can't remember what website I saw it on. Now can just pin it. I have a pin it icon on my toolbar, so I just click it, name it, and post it to the corresponding board.   Simple!!! Plus there is a whole community on Pinterest. I can see these amazing crafts that other people have made. And then there is the recipes section. There is a never ending supply of recipes. It's great for entertaining. I've already made a couple of them. All in all there are 31 different categories for boards. Best of all you can follow your friends.

2) Pollo Tropical- We have this place here that has some of the best yummy food. They are local FL restaurants with a couple out of state. They have this cilantro garlic sauce which is divine. We stopped in today to try it out. We went through the drive through and it's a good idea to either grab a menu prior to getting to the drive through or checking it out online. There is a lot of different combination's and we sounded like a pair of noobs at the window. The food was quick and oh so tasty.

Trains vs. Planes

So I'm one of these weirdo people that like to plan trips. Not take the trips but just plan trips. At any given time I have about 4 of these mental trips going in my head. I read somewhere that planning a trip is just as rewarding as taking the trips. Any who I said all that to say this.....The rail system in America STINKS. Amtrak is failing and we don't have high speed rail her in the states. They say that is because there isn't any demand for rail. I think I know why.

When I was kicking around the idea of going to Chicago, Daniel tossed out the idea of taking the train up there. We took a local sightseeing train on our honeymoon and LOVED it so we've always wanted to take a trip via rail. So I went to the Amtrak website and plugged in the information for our fake trip. We picked March of 2012 and said we wanted to leave March 4th and return March 9th. Then I was hit with the tragic truth. To take the trip to Chicago is would cost $579 and take us 40 hours EACH WAY to get there. Whaaaaa?!?!?!? It would involve switching trains with one layover of 8 hours in DC. Just to give you an idea of how crazy that is I went to Priceline and punched in the same dates and we could fly there in less then 4 hours and it would only cost us $56 more. Hmmmm I wonder which one we would pick? Give up 80 hours and save $56 or spend $56 and save 72 hours of my life. Which one....which one?

I like traveling by train. That trip on our honeymoon was amazing and relaxing. No TSA to worry about. No weighting suitcases. No being cramped up with the seat in front of you invading your personal space. I would LOVE to say goodbye to the unfriendly skies but we don't have any other alternative.  

Oh well I'm off to plan my mental trip to Bora Bora.