One Little Change

Last week I did a lot of crocheting to put items in my zibbet shop to sell for charity.  It felt really nice, did my soul a lot of good.  But there was something else that I did that made me feel even better than that.  This:

There is a story behind this hat.  I have a friend.  I've never technically met her, but she's just as much my friend as any one else.  She lives in Canada.  There are two things about her that make her a front-runner in the "people who inspire me the most" category.  First of all, she has lost over 100 pounds.  She's reached her goal weight and looks fantastic.  I made her a corset top last year so she could show it off.  =)  Secondly, she has three children with Austism.  I cannot imagine the struggles she faces, but she faces them head on with the best attitude you can imagine.  She just rocks.

When I was showing off my Heart Association donation items, she mentioned that she wanted a mohawk hat for her son.  She found one for her daughter, but they didn't have any boyish hats.  So I decided to make one.  I asked her kind of what she was looking for, but I didn't tell her I was doing it, because I wanted to surprise her a little bit (and I wanted to make sure I didn't just make a hot mess of a hat LOL) I was just giddy when I saw the finished hat, knowing that it would make someone very special happy.  I showed it to her and she loved it.  I would have just mailed it to her as a surprise, but I'm pretty sure she would just mail me a check after the fact (she was very adamant when I made her corset top that I charge her what I would charge any other person), plus I'm just going to add it to my Heart Walk money.

And about a week ago, I did surprise someone with something I made...

 

This is a shirt for my sister-in-law.  She had mentioned needing this exact shirt, and without saying a word, I made it and shipped it off to her.  I thought I was going to lose my mind waiting on her to get it.  =)  She was so excited and it just made me feel so good.

 

So that's one of my little changes this year... trying to brighten up someone's day with something I made for them.  I have a few ideas planned and I committed to the "Pay It Forward" challenge on facebook earlier in the year and need to get those taken care of, too.  It's so much fun to make someone smile.

This week's change...

First of all, last week's change of reading to the girls more was not perfect, but much better.  Aside from tonight, when we were out and about and got home late and they were asleep almost before I turned out the light... Other than that, I tried to make sure that if I didn't read to them earlier in the day that I didn't skimp at bedtime.  Olivia even brought me a few books through out the week to read to me.  Books that we have, not books from school.  I have to admit that I do struggle with being patient when she gets stumped by a word because she goes from being so proud and confident to a very whiny "I can't do it" in 2 seconds flat.  I am trying though.

This week's change was inspired by my last post.  We have a lot of changes that need to be made in regards to just leading a healthier life and doing it one step at a time is definitely going to be the best way to go.  So - after dinner, the TV goes off and the music goes on and we dance.  Physical activity for all (except Daddy, who leaves for work right after dinner)... less TV (Olivia is most definitely an addict)... and good  Mommy and kiddo time.  And maybe we'll move straight from dance time to story time.  Try to build up to a much more structured and productive evening routine, instead of the chaos we have going on normally.