Day 1-How Sweet It is

Day 1: I had no difficulty deciding who I wanted my first act of kindness to reach. There are a group of important people with whom I spend time almost every morning, yet, I do not know their names. They are the friendly and warm baristas from a locally owned coffee shack who not only make my morning brighter many mornings, but also my son's mornings as well. When they see me coming they almost always have a small cup of animal crackers or (this time of year) Christmas cookies at the ready for my little guy. They are always smiling and kind. It got me to thinking, "How can I spend so much time with other people and not know their names?" How often does this happen? We run through our days in a mad dash and forget the relationship parts of interacting with others. Sure, I'm paying for a service and I could just leave it at that, but what if there have been times that they needed an encouraging word or other support I could have provided, even during our brief contact, and I missed it. I was so excited I had difficulty sleeping...this was actually going to happen...my plan! I set my alarm and got up early. I made cinnamon rolls and wrote a card. In the card, I thanked them for their friendly dispositions every morning, explained this mission of mine and apologized for not knowing their names. I challenged in the card to pay it forward with another kind act and to come to the blog to share once they do. Maybe they'll do this and maybe they won't, but the process is beginning :). I packed up my car, strapped Owen into his car seat and headed to the coffee stand. As I neared the stand, my heart started to race. I was getting nervous. What if they didn't understand my intention? What if they thought I was some weirdo who was bringing sticky buns laced with some kind of chemical? I pushed the doubts aside and turned on my blinker. As I pulled up I saw a familiar face. A very tired familiar face. When he opened the window I simply stated, "I'm not getting a coffee today. I stopped by to give you these" and I passed him the sticky buns with the card. He looked bewildered and then smiled broadly and said "Hey, thanks. Good morning to you!" I simply returned the greeting and headed to day care to drop off my son. I already know it's making a difference, my husband left me a note this morning on my dashboard with the following message "I love you!" Amazing! 364 more days of kindness...are you in?