Some things never get old!

I woke up this morning to find my current treasury west had made it to the front page. Unfortunately it was at 3:30 in the morning my time but it's still a nice thing to wake up to.


Congratulations to the following artists who made it a possibility. juliebcreative, babydarling, JennSki, zutaten, greciangoldsmith, Folk, mydogkaya, curtie01, VerreEncore, ThePeachTree, fricdementol, retrofied.

Update on modern bean

Just a quick update for you folks who have been following my blog lately.

Modern Bean not only made her first sale on Friday but three sales! Whoo hoo!

Congrats!! I'm doing the happy dance for you!

28 Days of Random Kindness - Act VII

Donated socks to a local charity

A local charity is trying to collect new socks for children in the area. Apparently there are many children who show up at school with either no socks or socks so thin or worn out that they no longer can keep a child's feet warm during the winter months. It made me sad to think of these children without socks and how it must make their parents sad as well that for whatever reason, they can't provide them for their children.

We so commonly hear about toy drives at Christmas to give a child a toy, which is sad as well, but not having socks in a cold climate with such long winters just really hit me.

We thought in our own small way we could help. This weekend we went out and bought several pairs of socks of different sizes and colours and brought them for the charity today. It felt good to do and I hope we can warm the soles of some little feet soon.

28 Days of Random Kindness - Act VI

Smile while you drive

So I've been making a point of trying to be a nicer driver in the last week. I feel like I'm a pretty nice driver most of the time. I stop at stop signs, I give pedestrians the right of way, I signal when changing lanes and I let people in most of the time. But this week was a bit different. I made a point of smiling at people while driving. Not some, mad, crazed-like smile, just a pleasant smile. As I waved someone in ahead of me I smiled. As I drove past the school crossing guard I gave her a smile. You wouldn't believe how many people responded back with a smile.

Instead of getting all frustrated and annoyed in the shopping centre parking lot I came out calm and somewhat peaceful. I had exchanged a rather nice moment with a women who was making an extremely wide turn around a pile of snow. But instead of getting mad I just pulled my car over to the right as far as it could go so that her car could get by. I just smiled at her as she came around and she smiled and kind of made a funny face at me because she knew she had taken the corner too wide. But really what did it matter? Was it that hard for me to move over a bit. No, and what's the point of yelling at someone for doing that. So instead of shaking my head at the wonderment of some people's driving skills and cursing under my breath, I just smiled to myself and drove along in my merry way. It was nice.

28 Days of Random Kindness - Act V

Being kind to myself

This morning was not a good morning for me. I woke up with a headache. I hate starting the day that way. It certainly takes the fun out of a Friday!

As I was searching for my Advil Liquid Gels for migraines in the cupboard I had to shuffle aside the regular strength Advil (that wasn't going to do) the Children's Advil (nope, not that either) , the kid's daily vitamins, Men's vitamins, Women's vitamins (oh, haven't had one of those recently) and the Vitamin D supplements (ouch, on that as well). It occurred to me that I had not been taking my vitamins and supplements regularly at all. It was far from a daily habit, or even weekly, let's try bi-weekly, or more like little spurts I'd remember 3 days in a row and then none for another week or two. Something so simple should be easy to do.

There have been alot of studies recently that show the health benefits of vitamin D (the sunshine vitamin). Some research has found it can guard against osteoporosis and may offer protection from breast and colon cancer, heart disease and dementia.

In Canada our northern latitude may be great for skiing but from October to March the sunlight is too feeble for Vitamin D production. During this time, our bodies draw down the stored Vitamin D built by summer sunshine, and whatever is acquired from supplements or diet.

So I'm going to fill my little weekly plastic pill container with my vitamins and supplements today and make a concerted effort to take them daily. Sometimes it's hard for me to take the time for myself, to think of myself. If I'm healthier, I'll be happier and I'll end up being a better mom, wife, friend and neighbour and at the least I'll make my doctor happy. It's ok to be kind to yourself and today I hope my little random act of kindness to myself brings a not so random effort to better my health.

28 Days of Random Kindness - Act IV

Helping out a new Etsy seller

This morning I started thinking about my start at Etsy. It was last April and after weeks and months of thinking about it I decided to take that plunge. It was so exciting. I remember the feeling I had as my first listing went live. That feeling of anticipation that maybe someone might buy it in the first few seconds. Well, that actually didn't happen. In fact, I didn't sell anything that first day, or the first week. I had to push the self doubt away and just keep listing new items, learning more about Etsy and try and find my way into the forums. Finally it came, it was an overnight sale (they are always so exciting) and it was on the 25th day. Looking back it really wasn't that long but it sure felt like it at the time.

Well, here I am over nine months later, and I've had some reasonable success. Nowhere near the sales numbers as some of the most successful sellers, or even the fairly successful sellers, but for me I'm happy right now. I thought maybe today I could help someone get their first sale. Nothing's better than that feeling of the first sale and the happy dance around the house. I wanted to pass that feeling onto someone new. So I checked out the Pounce search feature. It's fun. You can choose undiscovered shops and hit the button and it will show you three pictures of shops that have recently listed but not sold anything. In doing this you realize just how much talent is out there. This is where I found the shop Modern Bean.

Modern Bean specializes in the sweetest hair clips made of wool felt and each are hand embroidered. I love the modern designs and colour combinations. As a Mom, she started to make them for her own children and I'm so glad she's now sharing them with us. They look so well made, they are very reasonably priced, her pictures are great and she ships Internationally.

So, if you have a moment visit this lovely shop. I'm going to do a little promoting in the forums and on twitter and who knows maybe I'll be passing on the happy dance to someone else today.

28 Days of Random Kindness - Act III

Did a favour for a friend

It's amazing how often the opportunity for kindness can be set before you without any thought or planning. That's what happened to me today. It started last night when my girlfriend called to see if we had a medieval costume in our dress-up collection that her daughter could borrow. Of course, with two older daughters who have already been in grade four (the school year with the medieval studies in the curriculum) and also avid Halloween participants we did, and in fact, we had two costumes.

So, this morning I remembered to go downstairs into our storage room to look through our boxes of dress-up clothes. I found the first one fairly easily and then not too long after the second was found. I had remembered there was a special headpiece for one and I was sure we would still have it. Just a few minutes of searching and it appeared as well. Carrying them upstairs I went to grab the phone so I could call her to let her know that I had them.

That's when I realized that I could go one step further and deliver them to her house. It turns out she wasn't there at the time but I'm sure she was busy taking her younger daughter to a playgroup or volunteering in the school or running the endless errands of a busy Mom. When she gets home I'm sure she'll be happy to see them waiting for her and know that one of her errands can now be scratched off the list.


It's a little thing, but it's a good thing and I did it!