Creating a Home for the Holidays

At this time of year we find ourselves focused on home and family as well as ways we can give back and share the blessings we’ve received. Recently I met a woman who has taken that focus to a whole new level. I found her story fascinating and inspirational and thought you’d like to hear about it.

A Home for the Holidays: New Project Hopes to Help Kids in Foster Care

This holiday season, as most of us make plans to spend time with our families over good food and long-held traditions, kids in foster care aren’t as lucky. They face a Christmas morning separated from their biological families and, many times, even from their siblings who are also in the state’s care. One new project hopes to change that by creating a permanent place for foster kids to call home.

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Random acts of kindness

Today is random acts of kindness day. I love the idea of creating happiness by doing nice things. It doesn’t take anything huge (although huge is greatly appreciated by the recipient), something as simple as a smile or a kind word can change someone’s day. And you know the drill from there; since they feel better they say something nice, and since that person feels better they say something nice, and so on, and so on…

But just being nice might not be enough for you so here is a great blog post with 29 ideas you can draw from:

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What are you sacrificing?

I’m reading “Uglies” by Scott Westerfeld. It’s a story about a city where, at the age of 16, everyone is “made pretty”. They give them perfect eyes, wonderful bone structure, even new skin. They change everything about them so that everyone can be pretty.

I’m not very far into the book, but at this point there are two 15-year-old girls who are great friends but one is looking forward to becoming “pretty” and the other isn’t. She believes that more than your looks are changed in that special operation and that you lose your intelligence and true creativity as well. She wants to run away to a place where you get to choose, where you can be yourself and do what works best for you.

I see people live with this dilemma in their holidays all the time.

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Made by:

Teri Williams posted this on Facebook today:

Daily OM message – I couldn’t have said it any better! When we give some part of ourselves to others, we actively participate in making our world a better place. Whether it is our time, resources, or words, whatever we can do to support someone else is something we do to cultivate a community, one that is linked through the bond of encouragement and collaboration.

I think this is what we experience when we

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