Do My Random Acts of Kindness Qualify? Day #11

Random acts of kindness don't have to be a huge deal or cost you a ton of money. Your kindness could be as simple as going out of your way to ask someone how they are doing. However, when you're ask to write down 5 of them and explain your feelings, it's tough to give yourself a pat on the back without feeling like you're bragging.

I put my phone down. I had conversations with people, put my son to bed, read with him – the whole deal. How did it make me feel? Incredibly sad. I don't like seeing this written down. I'm not a fan of being the mom who is always on her phone. Quality time with my son is the most important thing in my life. Period. I don't get these days back and certainly don't get these moments back. I need to do this more so it doesn't qualify as an act of kindness. Kindness to whom? My son who deserves my attention? This was quite a wake-up call.

I sent a card to my aunts just because. They mean the world to me and I wanted them to know. How did it make me feel? This was a good one. I'm always saying "I wish I would have told them how I felt. Sending cards is something I love to do because they are usually for an occasion so doing it for no reason is fun. I like this game. I think I'll do it more.

I took an undesirable spot in the parking lot so the person behind me could have a better one. This is big for me because I feel it a huge accomplishment to find a great spot. I didn't know how I felt about what I did until later in the day. I was in a hurry and really didn't have time to do anything but exactly what I needed to do. I don't know how the other person felt about getting a great (and I'm talking GREAT) spot but it's okay. I feel good about it and I probably burned more calories walking from my new spot the furthest from the store.

I baked donuts with my son during the Seahawks game and didn’t lay on the guilt like I wanted to. Whether the Seahawks win or lose, they are my team. I like to sit and watch the game. When I have people over, it's to watch football, not sit and socialize about other things. I'm not mean about it but I truly enjoy it. My son wanted to make donuts so badly and I promised we would do it over the weekend. By 11am on Sunday, the weekend was running out. With my jersey on and a sweet little face looking at me, I started mixing ingredients. How it ended up is that we would bake during commercials and halftime. It worked out perfectly. I now see that I don't have to choose one or the other. I also feel good about the fact that I followed through on my promise to my son and had some sort of distraction from the garbage that was happening during the game.

I'm supposed to have five random acts of kindness. Here's where the tough part of this challenge comes in. At what point am I going through my day recounting the great things I've done in order to pat myself on the back vs. truly calling to attention the good moments I acted kind?

I've been left with a lot to think about and I like it. My goal is to turn things that would be considered random acts of kindness into things that I do regularly.