Stories of Kindness from Around the World

For The Love Of Cats 🐈❤️🐈‍⬛

So, I have been volunteering at the local animal shelter as a "cat-cuddler" for just over five and a half years now. Time certainly flies! 😻

Chatted to one of the staff yesterday about some of the cats that I remembered from back then. She is in charge of the cats and remembered them well too. Back then, during my first year especially, I took lots of photos of my fav kitties and hoped to make up a photo album for myself.

Today I located those old pics on my laptop as I thought the lovely lady in charge of the cats will appreciate them. Initially considered getting a few printed out as good old-fashioned photos but then figured that is not exactly environmentally-friendly.

So I transferred them (about 150) onto a USB stick instead and will give it to the lady. Maybe the animal shelter might want to use some of the better photos for their website.
 

Today, It's Chocolate Kindness

Today, it's chocolate kindness for former office colleagues who happened to be the organizers of the meeting I attended today.

What better sweet way to reconnect than to flavor it with chocolate 💖

Happy Celebrating

❤️ We invited two of our neighbor-friends to join us at our 45th anniversary celebrate at our favorite local restaurant.

🎂 Unbeknownst to them, we arranged for a birthday cake to be served at the end of the meal, to celebrate the husband’s 75th birthday, which is also this week. I knew his favorite was strawberry shortcake, so that’s what I ordered :)

After a leisurely wonderful meal sharing, the waitstaff came out singing, with the cake & we all sang Happy Birthday 🎶 And then they started to sing Happy Anniversary to us :)

😊They shared some pictures I took there with their sons who live a good distance away.

A good time was had by all ❤️

Being There

I made a site visit to the outskirts of our city Chennai India along with my client. He is in the process of trying to sell some plots which are part of a large Lay-out.
He was very happy I accompanied him. Sometimes you need to be available and also help them professionally so that they have better hope.

This too is kindness, that is, giving my time and being with him and also helping him to get back some of the money he has invested in the land.
Being an architect I give him right advice. More importantly he has complete confidence in me.
My presence reassures him and we get along well.
Please wish him well!

Green alternative with Soap Nuts

Today I tried out soap nuts (aka soap berries) instead of conventional laundry detergent. Only 5 for a full washload and my clothes came out sparkling clean and smelling lovely. Really pleased with the results and will continue to buy and use these. No way back now for me!

Keen to do more for Mother Earth by reducing some more plastic / cutting out chemicals where I can. Seemingly you can even use soap nuts to clean your home, wash your dishes and even wash your hair. So I boiled up the soap nuts which came out nice and soft from the washing machine and let them simmer for about half an hour. Totally looking forward to trying out a new green cleaning detergent and a washing-up liquid. Next plan is to replace plastic water bottles for glass ones as these will def get recycled.

A Sweet Meet

It’s warming up here in NYC today…the mailman looked hot! 🥵

💧 My offer of water was so graciously accepted…he held a gentle energy.

🕊 Gave him a peace dove with the water & he gifted me a beautiful smile & a “thank you so much”

❤️ A feel good give 👍

Kindness Trip To New Jersey

Kindness trip to New Jersey

On May 22, I consulted with my family doctor in New York. Gave some quote cards. He gave me a ride to his house in New Jersey. I am grateful to him.

My divine sister picked me up and accommodated me in their house for four days and prepared lunch and dinner for me. I am grateful to her family. I gave books, Date-nuts sweets. Handkerchiefs, fancy paper bags made by Utthan, quote cards, and Mindy's Origami Peace Dove quote cards. Talked about positive thinking. Adjusted sewing machine to run smoothly. 

I met other friends and family. 

I returned to New York on May 26

I am grateful to Sri Sathya Sai Baba for giving me these opportunities of kindness and guiding and helping me in this regard

Helping

On our walk home last night from our friends’ home we were passing a house on their block & saw a frail elderly woman using a cane about to walk down her steps to put a bag of recyclables at her curb for collection. ♻️

I asked her if we could do that for her & she smiled wide & gratefully accepted our offer. It felt good to be able to do that for her. ❤️

Kindness Gives Joy

After almost two years of being away from my kindspring home, I decided to start a new kind of journey on June 1.

But kindness came one day earlier for me as one of our janitress at the office informed me that she will be transfered to another office starting tomorrow.

It felt good to give her some cash token and a note to tell her how grateful I am for her dedicated service to us.

Indeed, to give is to receive more in terms of joy and fulfillment. May this post be my personal reminder to be equally committed and faithful to living a life of kindness, one kind act at a time.

So help me God!

Expressing Joy and Love

I will visit friend tomorrow at the Chinese restaurant and tell them that I love them. New or old friend is a story of where I've been. So many stories. Finished trimming rhubarb. Wildflowers bushel are ready for reseeding. Father is happy. 🐇. 🐇. 🐇. June 9th is Strawberry Rhubarb pie 🥧 day. Mother will enjoy harvest sweetness.

63+ Gifts

♡

Well, I lost track again. I'm doing okay though and should reach my goal before next March 29th (my 64th birthday). So many people here on KS inspired me to do this and it's been great fun.

This past week:

• Created a vid for a friend.
  Sent a small donation to three light-filled places doing great work (one is our NRHugs in HI).
  Interviewed JohnnyO today for his memoir. He'll be joining us for the group.
  Created another "you rock" graphic for my mom. (Attached.)
  Had a nice conversation with my neighbor about my little garden (tomatoes and herbs so far). He's going to grow beans and we're going to share.
  Wrote a snail mail letter to a friend and sent three others.

🌱 Healing Garden Gives 🙏

A visit to our local hospital’s healing garden gave me an opportunity to utilize the prayer tags in the prayer hut that the CRAFTERNOON Kindness Crew made a few months ago to replenish the dwindling tags. One for MisterM - he’s doing better, but it’s slow going, and another for my brother in law - who is currently in hospital, but hopefully will return home in time to celebrate his daughter’s wedding this weekend. A tag posted on the wall caught my attention. It read, “For my grandma, that she has a peaceful death.” 🙏 I put my hand, palm side down over the tag, and said a prayer for the author and for the grandma 💕 . 🪴 Displayed a can of laminated “pot stickers” - made from daily tear off calendar pages, for folks to take and stick in flower pots, garden, etc…The CK Crew made them last week and it’s ... Read Full Story >>

Let’s Talk Mental Health

Let’s Talk Mental Health Each month I attend an open stage event at a local café and read a few of my inspirations. It is fun to participate and to enjoy the talents of others who take to the stage to perform. May is youth mental health awareness month. It took me some time to write something I felt would be relevant and meaningful. I felt what I had written was too long to share in one post, so I have broken it down into three parts. Part 1: Starting the Conversation Discussions about mental health are more acceptable today but it was not always the case. As a young person I vaguely knew about death by suicide, nervous breakdowns, postpartum depression, grief and different mental health conditions such as bi-polar disorder. If they were talked about at all it was in hushed tones and not in front of children. Things are changing. ... Read Full Story >>

Cross-stitch

I used to regularly do counted cross stitch but after I had my daughter there was less time to do it and I moved on to other crafts. However, recently I found a kit to stitch an owl so I've been doing a little each day so I don't tire myself so much. I'm making it for my daughter as we share a love of owls.

This morning while shopping, I joined a queue and then the store opened up another till. There was a couple behind me and I could see they hadn't as much in there trolley as I did so I told them to go across.

Daily Joys

I’ve been finding daily joy thanks to Mindy’s catnip mousies. Ever since we lost our little feral friend Doofus recently, we are gifted to watch her feral friends playing with the catnip mousies we put in the backyard…they roll around, leap in the air…it’s like watching a cat ballet 🐈 🩰 🐈‍⬛

I think of Doofus & hold the good memories of our sits there in the sunshine with her, feeling her loving presence & have good cries. It’s all part of the grieving process…

Grateful for our feral friends ❤️

Thank you Mindy for your generous sharings 💕


🖼 Artist Credit : S Hee

Giving Support to Families

My partner trying to make the best use of a bin bag with garden waste to take to the skip :-))) Lots of workers in the house, trying to be patient and kind, offering tea and water every now and then, sometimes treats :-)
One of the workers is from Rumania, he asked for help setting up a new debit card and account. He hardly speaks English. He is so hard working! He deserves support. Told me all about his family, 5 children! Gave him some starter reading books for them so they can also practise the language. I have a lot of respect for people who work very hard and care deeply about their families.

Easy Kindness….

How was I able to share some kindness yesterday…..always chances present themselves ❤️

Told someone it was a pleasure dealing with them and that they were very kind & a nice person….a big warm smile & a thank you resulted. Lovely man ❤️

Shared laughs & smiles with one of our favorite servers where we enjoyed a lovely mid-day meal. 😊

Smiled & shared hellos with several back & forth trips a mom & then dad who were escorting their little ones to the washroom, as they passed our table a few times. 😊

Supporting Environmental Projects

When the repayments come in at the end of the month from lendwithcare - I usually find I have enough funds to lend to four more people or groups. Today was no exception and I immediately lent the minimum amount to a lady entrepreneur who was expanding her farm to help with her family. Then I noticed four groups of people who wanted loans for solar panels. I decided as it is my birthday in the coming week, I would make a loan to all four groups using some of my birthday money as well as the credit I already had.

I'm really glad when I can support environmental projects especially when it helps them to improve and help their own community.

🇺🇸 Red, White & Blue Cheer

Our CRAFTERNOON Kindness Crew crafted some stellar patriotic centerpieces for Memorial Day, which can also be used for 4th of July celebrations.

Using a minimal amount of cash and LOTS of time and energy, we made enough centerpieces to give to the Meals On Wheels organization, assisted living facility, plus a few for the VFW and various others.

Grateful to realize the power of our combined creative energies to BE THE CHANGE WE WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD! 🌎 🕊️

📚 Sharing Uplifting Books To Hospital Shelf💕

“Looks like you found some good books,” Jessie, the library director observed, as she was about to total the sale.

“I do enjoy your book sale room,” I replied, "and I’m donating these to the hospital’s free shelf, so I tried to choose books with a positive and uplifting message.”

Jesse put her hands on the stack of books, looked up at me and said, “Mindy, please just take these books, with our appreciation, no charge.”

That’s the beautiful thing about kindness and knowledge, the more you give, the more you inspire and encourage, the more it ripples out in such lovely ways! 📚