Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Joy in Service: Day 6 Thank a Worker

The invisible ones.
The guys who pick up your garbage. The custodian who cleans up the school. The bus driver. The kid who gathers the grocery carts. Your mail carrier.

What ideas do you have for ways to thank them. I'm thinking of standing out when our garbage truck driver comes through and handing him a gift. They drive by in the big robot trucks so the driver doesn't usually get out of the truck... I'd have to get his attention some how. We love the robot truck. We run to the window to watch the arms reach out and grab the bin and lift it up so high to dump it into the truck! I think I might still run to the window to watch even without kids.

Boro Project by Lyric Kinard
I've been mentioning this to so people as I'm out in different places and it's so much fun to see them think of little ideas they can do to make someone feel better. I did stop and say thank you to the secretary at my kidlet's school, and told her how great she looked. I didn't leave myself enough time to give a gift. I did some quick shopping later and instead of just picking up teacher gifts, I picked up extras for the bus driver, the secretary, and the custodians. They need the lift as much as the teachers do.

But I feel bad for one thing. I was rotten grouchy after some worse than usual "homework fights" with the kids last night and after they went to bed I went to the grocery store. I smiled and asked one girl who was stocking shelves how she was and she said "tired." I smiled and said "tired too." I wish, wish, wish, I had a little gift... a flower, anything, to give her. Or maybe I should have just knelt down next to her and given her a very quick hug and told her thank you for what she does. Now I know what to do next time.



And here is the progress on my Boro project. One more gore in the skirt, a zipper and a hems and then some of the real fun begins. I think I might raid my stash of hand dyed lace. I like the idea of embroidering stories into the cloth as Melly does.
Upcycling!
Please tell me what you did to make the world a better place today!
It's not bragging - it's giving me ideas for what I can do.
It's inspiring others to look outward.
There is nothing that makes one feel better than helping someone else.

And I'm having so much fun sending little thank-you gifts from my studio. Mostly some lovely Quilting Arts magazines that I need to clear out, but a few other things here and there.