DSNFS Friday=Haner Blessing Day

image taken from thejoeglovertrust website

OK, I am OVER the long abbreviation for this day, so now we are just calling it Haner Blessing Day...HBD. (DSFNS stood for Do Something Nice For Someone.)

ANYWAY,

I knew when I woke up that it was Friday. This is the day we GET to bless someone. Our activity of the day is blessing...but I am not a morning person. And even after a hot shower this morning, I was in no mood for blessing. Fridays are the end of the work week for my sweet husband, and the end of my patience (probably because I know help is on the horizon.)

P.S. Basketball referee assignors, could you please never ever ask my husband to ref on a Friday night ever ever again?

...so I prayed...

"Lord, oh Lord, could you please help my heart?! Why is it that the LAST thing I want to do is go out into this cold weather and take somebody something...that means I have to get everybody dressed--in lots of layers, including myself--and parade around in my grayish greenish brown hair..."

Nice prayer, huh?

So, I finally got out the bowl of names during breakfast. If you don't know about the bowl, basically, I asked the kids to name every single person they could think of that we know, are related to (ignore preposition misplacement throughout this post please), have ever met, etc. Plus there is an "anonymous" in there for a random person we see during the day. They came up with over a hundred names! I cut them up, stuck them in a bowl, and every Friday, we pick two names (Kya picks one and Wyatt picks one.) Then we decide what we can do (on a modest budget) to bless those people.

Today, I was thinking, "Oh, maybe it will be grandma or Raquel..." That will be so fun (and easy...and close to home...)

God had other plans.

We prayed over the names and the two people we drew, I had no idea either where to find them during the day or what to do for them...I tracked down one of them through his wife (who I wanted to contact anyway because HELLO, that would be weird for me to bring a married man a special treat at his workplace when we don't even know each other that well) and the other I tracked down through good old Facebook.

We ended up delivering plates of cookies and blueberry muffins that the kids helped make and it was so fun! (Although I got more, "Are you done?" "Your hands sure are FULL!" type comments today than I think I have ever had in one day!) But, they all seemed well-intentioned.

It turned out that getting out of the house and presenting ourselves and our HBD explanation at two different workplaces, in hopes of teaching the kids the importance of giving, really changed my attitude today and I am so glad for the people my kids chose because it got me out of my comfort zone. I just hope the HBD recipients' day is a little brighter because of our chaotic visits and less than perfect baked goods. :) Ours is!

Blog Reflections on a Day

Sometimes I feel like I am really funny when I am blogging. I laugh at myself, which is awesome because my husband reminds me daily that I am really not as funny as I think I am. He is a great humbling force in my life...for which I am truly thankful. :)

Sometimes I feel serious and contemplative when I am blogging, which leads me to find irony or deep meaning in daily events.

Today, I am tired. My sweet kiddos did not sleep much the past two nights (and mommy stayed out waaaay too late at Christmas Bunco on Monday night (and drank caffeinated iced tea there like a BIG dope so I couldn't even sleep when I did get home)).

So, here are some reflections from this tired mommy on this day of sick kids in no particular order (list format stolen from Jennifer at "for the praise of his name"):

• "Light ash blond" on the box can actually mean grayish light greeny brown;


• One year olds cannot be left alone, ever;


• Brothers and sisters who are close in age CAN be great friends and comrades;


• Husbands who smile at you even after a hard day and even when you have grayish green brown hair are priceless;


• Facebook is not for the undisciplined;


• Wash poopy clothes in hot water to kill germs;


• If you know you are going to be nauseous and tired from noon on, get all the things that require standing done BEFORE 11:30;


• A nice clean cuddly child can erase hours of grumpiness;


• Friends who are honest about themselves and their struggles are a treasure;


• God is with us even when we don't feel Him or acknowledge Him, but He'd rather we acknowledge Him.


• When I go through the day without acknowledging Him, I have a hard time snapping out of a grumpy mood; and


• I am so thankful for other blogging moms who provide endless encouragement, advice, ideas, and research, to challenge me to make my mommyhood exceptional rather than just tolerable.

That's all for now. All our children are sleeping, which means early to rise. Blessings from this preggo sleepy thankful mommy.

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