What a horrible chill-to-the-bone type of weather day we had. The rain came just in time to make the snow turned slush turned wet ice rink parking lot an uninviting slip'n slide. When I arrived at work I placed one foot out of my car and thought, nope, I'll never survive the 75 feet to the door. How poorly maintained this lot was. I suppose I should complain. Never-the-less, I found a better spot and made it indoors safely.

What better way to cheer up a dreary day than to do a good deed I ask you? I drove my co-worker and her nearly 5 year old son about 15 minutes each way to get them home safely after work. Normally she's footing it to the train station about a mile, then once she gets to her town she has to get on a bus. Yuck. It's bad enough being a working mom but can you imagine having to walk through what Mother Nature left us today? In the cold? When it's raining? Uphill both ways? Nor can I, nor can I.

The little guy

You may know that I work in a hospital. Much of what I do there could potentially be posted in this blog. I like helping people, and I especially like it when I go home and feel like I made a difference in someone's life. However, I get paid to do what I do, so most things done on the job I cannot use for this blog's purpose.

What if I do something completely out of my line of duty? Today I helped the little guy, and what a cute little guy he is! He's not even two and has got the most gorgeous slate blue eyes. Early in the day little guy was charming and so well behaved. Accompanied by only his father, he was doing pretty darn good. As the day worn on he was getting more and more restless and over-tired. He couldn't fall asleep he was so tired! His dad had to run outside the hospital for a few minutes to get a care package from the wife. Imagine - this little guy who is already crying, uncomfortable and besides himself with fatigue to be left alone? So I stayed with him and tried my best to occupy him. It is definitely not part of my job to hang out with a patient's baby, and certainly I could have left the child in the room solo. A prisoner in one of those cribs with bars that go up to the ceiling. I was surprised when his dad took at least 20 minutes to run down and back up. The little guy cried desperately for his father. I read a book, played patty cake, made faces and even put Sponge Bob on but the game he had the most fun with was me putting pieces of tape on my nose, acting surprised that it got there again and him grabbing it off. Cuteness. :-)

Today's good deed was indeed fun! I took the girls to the preschool they used to attend (upstairs from their after school program) and the teacher in one of the classrooms, whom I love, allowed Emily to read to a few children. She really enjoyed it, her first storytelling gig! Nice work kiddo. :-)

Doggie deed. I love this type of helpfulness. If I weren't such an allergic person I think I'd be living on a farm somewhere with several farm dogs running free.

On my way to pick up the girls a little terrier, probably a Yorkie - I'm not good with breeds - was running loose in the middle of the road. I slowed and passed her by, parked and walked back to her. She was funny barking at a trio of German Shepards walking by on leash. I made my way to her backing her up onto the sidewalk out of traffic. Thank goodness this isn't a main street. Turned out she lives right there, her owner popped her head out to call her in and thanked me. I have a hunch this wasn't an unusual occurrence! Maybe my next good deed will be to buy the owner a leash! :-/

The days I work late I am lucky enough to have my sister's help with the kids until Glenn gets home. Tonight Glenn was later than usual, attending a meeting held at our town library. Before leaving he check with my sister to find out where she was in a series of books so he could look for the next one for her. He wasn't even asked ... and her library didn't have it. He's such a good guy. :-)

Yesterday I never got online to post a good deed. I fell asleep curled up with Jamie after she begged me for some "mommy time". We played on their DSi's for a while till we fell asleep.

Emily says her good deed yesterday, Saturday, was helping her cousin. Jennie came over Friday evening and had a sleep over with us. We drove all over on Saturday. First I took them all to Emily and Jamie's karate practice. Then back home. Then we went to the place we're planning on having the adoption party to check it out. Then to the movies, then to Jennie's house. Emily said that Jennie was unable to buckle herself and she did it for her each time. And I didn't have to ask her, I didn't even know Jennie was having trouble ... so I like, really like, this good deed!

Today Glenn took care of the recycling. It's fair to say that almost all of us do this task, and if you think about why we are recycling I think you'll agree it is a good deed. After all there are people who ignore recycling all together. We had a whole back porch full of cardboard boxes from all the internet Christmas shopping we did, plus a ton of cardboard boxes and miscellaneous cardboard packaging from the toys themselves. Everything, even the month's worth of junk mail, glass and plastics, made its way to the recycling center today in broken down neat packages. I don't think you could see the kids in the van once it was all packed up!

Remember, there is a Dunkin Donuts gift card in someone's future. A nice cup of coffee sounds good right about now. Post your good deeds of January 2011 and be in the running for the $25 gift card. Might be an easy win, there aren't a lot of posts .... yet!!

A good deed might be the act of not acting. Today I bit my tongue and didn't go up one side of a person and down the other. I know, sounds lame, but I really get tested with this person. LOL

Please keep posting! And try to register so I can count you in for the gift card raffle. If you encounter any problems shoot me an e-mail at Quietmel@aol.com with something in the subject heading to clue me in who you are.

Win a Dunkin Donut gift card

Good deeds don't have to be enormous. As a matter of fact, paying attention to the smaller acts of kindness you normally do every day without thinking may pay off by setting a chain reaction into motion. I'm talking about things that most people do without thinking twice. By being mindful of these you will naturally give yourself a little boost. This will feel good and maybe you will be more aware of the next, possibly bigger, opportunity that pops up. Grab it if you can.

I own an URL address that I have yet to determine how to use. Another company out there has a similar address. Mine's better, and subsequently I get their misguided e-mails. We briefly discussed selling it but their offer, in my opinion, was not fair. Today I received one of those lost e-mails. It was someone's resume, hopeful to begin a new job. I couldn't help it, I had to write back to let him know his potential employers have not receive his information. This is a small good deed, but it might have made the difference in someone getting a job.

To bring more traffic to this blog I have a trick up my sleeve. For January 2011, all comments posted featuring a January 2011 good deed will be placed into a raffle. In aiming to stir up good deed action, only those occurring in January are eligible. At the end of the month I will randomly choose a winner to receive a $25 gift card to Dunkin Donuts. So this means you'll have to register with Blogger, even if you use an alias. However, if you win you'll have to let me know where to send your prize!

So get out there and get busy doing good things, come back here and share!

My 11 year old nephew Alex is stepping in for today's good deed. I know I said we'd be doing a good deed a day between the four of us in this house, but Alex comes here often enough to qualify!

He was behind a dude who dropped his iPod and kept walking, Alex picked it up and ran to catch up with the dude and returned the iPod to its owner.

I'm not surprised of Alex's good deed to be honest, despite his unique wackiness, he has always been a very caring person. I love ya, dude. :-)

It's a tie!

Today Emily helped a classmate find her lost pencil. She had to get up to look for it with her and, thankfully, it wasn't too far. It was under the girl's chair! Of all places!

Also, Glenn helped an elderly man find where he had parked his car. His office can be confusing as there are exits to parking from two levels. The car was there, let's hope he got home safely!

Today, Jamie wants the spotlight for the good deed. She says that in her classroom she helped her teacher take down the signs of all the students first names and put up the signs of the children's first and last names. I probed a little, wondering if this was a good deed or a privilege, but it's hard to tell a 6 year old differently!

Working in a hospital should hopefully lend way to some good deed opportunities. Here's todays: Emily and Jamie each made a get well card for a patient who doesn't have any cards or personal decoration in their room. A hospital room can look so sterile without a little outside influence. They made their cards today, I will deliver them on my next work day. Good job girls! ;-)

Glenn gets the credit for today's good deed. Now that I am working day shifts I have to confess it's really difficult for me to pull myself out of bed at 5:30am. And, it feels so unnatural to go outside in the dark and get into a cold car. This morning at about 6:20 Glenn left his warm cocoon to venture outside and start my car for me!

If you have a good deed that you'd like to share please feel free to post them in the comments!