And the winner is ...

Hello everyone,

So much has happened in a few weeks. I've completely fallen off the good deed blog bandwagon, sad to say. At least I've been busy with good things, like working and ... oh, adopting two kids, you know, a typical January.

Now that January is behind us I have randomly chosen a winner for the my blog contest. I had offered in January (as a ploy to get more readers, and more commenters) a $25 gift card to Dunkin Donuts. Purely a random thing, I used a die to decide, someone out there will be able to overdose on caffeine or sugar, or both!

So, congratulations to Kim N for being my lucky winner!! Woot-woot! Kim, I hope you can hit the Ramsey drive-thru on your next trip to Hassenfeld Children's Center for Cancer and other Blood Disorders. Much luck to you and your daughter Mary, and please keep contributing to the prize bin at the center, it's amazing how a little trinket can really occupy a little person with something to look forward to. (Kim I will need your address, please e-mail it to me.)

Meanwhile I need to rethink my frequency of good deed posting commitment. I found it very difficult to have something fresh and new to post on a daily basis. Please feel free to post here anytime, we motivate each other!

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!!