This Summer’s Last SOS Challenge—Giving the Gift of Cleaning and Organizing!
August 29, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 31 Comments
Does your spring cleaning ever turn into fall cleaning? Or, do you feel that the housework is never done? This week is the last in 14 weeks of Summer of Service challenges and is sponsored by Dyson, because it is all about making this week—starting with today!—squeaky clean for you, your friends and family, and/or your community. Here are 10 ways to do that.
- Make time to clean or organize one area of your house/apartment each day this week no matter how big or small.
- Put the days of the week on a different piece of paper and have your children draw a different day out of a hat. On the assigned day, help your child clean his or her room, teaching the skills needed to do it on their own.
- Go through all the sock drawers in your house, matching up all the pairs and throwing out those without a match.
- Have a family cleaning party. One example is to play songs like “Whistle while you work!” and see who can pick up the most things or get the most accomplished before the song ends.
- Be a clean person by living according to your values. For example, be honest and fair in all of your dealings, be a person of integrity, etc.
- Identify a friend or family who is sick, having a difficult time, or who could use a break. Stop by their house unannounced and do their dishes, empty their garbage, sweep and mop their floor, or clean the guest bathroom. If you know this person well and have access to their house, do it anonymously!
- Take your children to a local park or cemetery and spend 15 minutes picking up the trash.
- Call a local non-profit agency or church and make arrangements to help weed, pick up trash, or clean the facilities. If appropriate, take your children along to help.
- The next time you are at a friends, family members, or in laws for dinner, offer to do all the dishes after the meal.
- Have a laundry folding party as a family and play games as you fold and put away the clothes.
How Will You Give to Others This Week?
- What other ideas do you have for being squeaky clean this week?
- What are things that get in the way of cleaning for yourself, your family and friends, or your community?
- What are ways to overcome these challenges?
- How has being squeaky clean this week made a meaningful difference for you? For others?
Remember to enter this week’s giveaway where 3 lucky winners will get a Dyson vacuum cleaner!
Is Service Sexy? Take This Week’s SOS Challenge and See!
July 19, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 17 Comments
10 Fashionable Ways to Make a Difference This Week
Service doesn’t have to be stodgy! Make service sexy and “in” by taking on this week’s Summer of Service challenge, sponsorsed by Lifetime TV. How? By doing one or more of the 10 ideas listed below!
- Buying or making some beautiful stationary and writing a thank-you note, congratulations card, birthday greeting, get-well wishes, or other thoughtful sentiment and delivering it to a friend or family member.
- Planning a date for your significant other and getting all dressed up for it.
- Taking care of yourself inside and out: Treat yourself to a new hair-do, mani/pedi, spa treatment, or makeover. Pay attention to your overall health and well being.
- Have your family pictures taken.
- Treat your daughter(s) to a spa day. Paint their nails for them, wash their hair, help them try on different outfits, and have a special luncheon just for them
- Decorate the table beautifully for a special family dinner you plan.
- Go through all of your closets and give any old or unused clothing to charity.
- Comment to one person each day during this week’s challenge on how beautiful he or she looks. Watch the difference it makes in their countenance.
- Have a family activity where you share the things that make each of you beautiful on the inside. Share with your family the importance of internal and external beauty.
- Encourage your children to take care of their outward beauty by eating well, exercising, getting enough sleep, and taking care of their health!
How Will You Give to Others This Week?
- What other ideas do you have for serving in style this week?
- How has serving in style made a meaningful difference this week for you? For others?
How Else Can You Make a Difference This Summer?
Make a meaningful difference this summer by taking the Summer of Service (SOS) Challenge. Here’s how you can participate:
- Commit to do one act of kindness/service based on the week’s challenge.
- Leave a comment with ideas relating to the week’s challenge as well as your experience(s) performing it.
- Grab the SOS button in the sidebar and put it on your blog or social networking site.
- Enter to win each week’s giveaway. Check out this week’s prize from Lifetime TV.
- Join #gno this Tuesday on Twitter to connect with other Mom It Forward moms about the challenge.
Character Building Opportunities—How to Mom It Forward During Trying Times
June 30, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 7 Comments
Babywearing father, doing yardwork with son.
I am going to admit something to you that my husband wishes I’d stay quiet about. I’m sharing, because I firmly believe that community makes us stronger. I also believe that holding everything inside makes us shrivel up. And, that by opening ourselves up to love, support, and kindness and perhaps even humiliation, fear, and ridicule, we find the greatest joy and strength. Why? How? Because we learn that we are all part of a very human experience and that we are not alone in this journey of life. I have found that when I’ve shared, I have become stronger in my convictions, gained more self esteem, and ultimately gained greater compassion, resulting in a greater ability to Mom It Forward.
What’s my secret? Nothing that really should have been so secretive to begin with. Nothing that is worse than what most people go through on a daily basis. After all, there is a lot of suffering going on out there. If you read my post from last Thursday, you’ll know that I am tuned in to that. That said, we all struggle in our own ways. So, what may seem insignificant to some, is very significant to others. And, because it seems that trials are custom made for each one of us, each of our struggles, however seemingly small, are large indeed… even something as small as not having a dime to your name. And, that’s it my friends. I’m broke! The secret’s out!
Why am I broke? Well, that would require a whole blog… not just a blog post. Suffice it to say that after my husband’s second lay off in the past few years, several large medical bills, a very expensive legal suit, getting up close and personal with fraud (don’t worry, we didn’t defraud anyone LOL!), and a risky business venture, it’s just where we’ve landed. Did we care about our credit score? Too much, in fact. Did we try and live within our means? Absolutely! Did we care about education and experience so we could provide for our family? We invested heavily in both. Are we victims? In some senses, yes. But, do we take accountability for where we are? Certainly! So, now what? And that is what this post is really about… the “now what!”
First-time mom, playing piano with son.
What does this mean? To me, all this means is that we have an amazing opportunity for growth. Wow! Did that just sound sugar coated or what? For those of you who really know me, you know that I don’t love sweets, so let me clarify. I don’t think trying to figure out how to pay our bills is fun. I don’t like looking into my living room at the blank spot where my piano used to be—the one we sold to put food on the table. The one I played every single day since the day I bought it 11 years ago. I don’t like knowing the rainy day fund has dried up. I don’t like filling the grocery cart only to find out we have to leave it full at the store, because it was more painful to know what was really NOT in the account than to find out at the cash register. I don’t like wondering how I will meet my obligations, especially since I consider myself to be an obligation-meeting type of a gal.
But what I love—and yes, there is so much to love in times of trial I have found—is that I get the opportunity to grow. I get the chance to learn. When else would I learn to have such compassion other than when I am absolutely put to the test? What I hate more than all those things I mentioned above is the feeling that I need to focus on money—the lack thereof, where the next dime will come from, whether Troy will ever find another job—when there are so many wonderful experiences to have—so much life I will miss if I do. That said, I see that I have three choices:
- I can give in.
- I can give up.
- I can give back.
Does the answer to any of these questions rely on my financial status? No!
Oldest son helps with the laundry.
So, along with my secret, I am also going to share with you my five resolves.
- I resolve to live life to the fullest and enjoy the journey along the way.
- I resolve to do things I love even though I can’t afford the things I want. If that means borrowing someone else’s piano so I can make music, then hopefully I will bless them with the talent I’ve been blessed with.
- I resolve to not let this test define me. Being rich or poor isn’t my character. Giving generously in whatever ways I can, financial or otherwise, is who I really am.
- I resolve to work toward leaving a legacy regardless of my financial status. For me, I want to change the world one mom at a time. So, I resolve to work on small and simple things every week to turn that goal into a reality.
- I resolve to not let money or financial worries occupy the majority of my thoughts. Does that mean that I won’t plan, work hard, budget, strategize, and be creative to try and figure a way out of this mess? I certainly will do those things. But, they will have their place and that will not be a place that is higher in priority to my marriage, my family, my resolve, or my self esteem.
I recognize many of you are struggling. Some are fighting personal battles. Others are struggling with family-related issues. Many are striving to give to others and really make a difference in spite of everything else you are dealing with. And probably all of us are supporting, in one way or another, loved ones we know who are struggling as well.
The important questions to answer are:
- Will you give in, give up, or give back?
- What will your resolves be?
- How will you pay attention to what truly matters when what concerns you is right in front of your face, vying for your constant attention?
- How will you Mom It Forward in the midst of your struggles?
(Note: Pictures featured in this post are of me and my husband when we first entered parenthood 8 1/2 years ago. When I look at these pictures, I don’t recall the hard times we were going through then. Instead, I relish in the joy of being blessed with a child and having the opportunity to be parents to now 2 boys. Hopefully, when I look back on pictures I take during this current situation, I will look back with similar happy thoughts. That’s my goal!)
Make Some Music & Make a Difference This Week
May 31, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 6 Comments
Make a meaningful difference this summer by taking the Summer of Service (SOS) Challenge. Here’s how:
- Commit to do one act of kindness each week based on the week’s challenge.
- Leave a comment with ideas relating to the week’s challenge as well as your experience(s) performing it.
- Grab the SOS button at the bottom of this post and put it on your blog or social networking site.
- Enter to win each week’s giveaway. Check out this week’s music-related giveaway by clicking here.
- Join #gno to connect with other Mom It Forward moms about the challenge.
10 Ways to Make a Difference This Week
Here are 10 music-related ideas that will make a meaningful difference this week!
- Teach your children your three favorite childhood songs. Perform them for others.
- Play an instrument with your child or sign your child up for music lessons.
- Share your musical talent(s) with others—to friends or family, over the phone or skype to loved ones that live far away, to strangers: at a nursing home or to a homeless person.
- Dedicate a song on the radio, on Twitter, on Facebook, or on your blog to someone you care about.
- Share the gift of music with someone by sending them an iTunes gift card, a CD, etc.
- Find out your dad’s 10 favorite songs, download, and burn them onto a CD for him for Father’s day.
- Send a loved one a letter/message with the words to a song that sums up your feelings for him/her.
- Set a great tone in your home by playing music in the background.
- Make up stories about classical music (or other wordless songs) and tell them to your children as the music is playing.
- Dance with your children!
This week’s SOS Challenge is sponsored by Diane Birch and S-Curve Records. What else can you do to Make Some Music? How has Making Some Music for others made a meaningful difference this week?
Mom It Forward—Past, Present, and Future Events for Giving
January 11, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 1 Comment
How Is Mom It Forward Changing the World One Mom at a Time?
Past Giving Activities
- Virtual Food Drive. Mom It Forward asked for cash donations and had a live auction (through twitter) to raise money for FeedingAmerica.org. The outcome? With less than 2 weeks of planning, with a community only 6 weeks “young,” and in one night, we raised $1400 to help provide families with Thanksgiving dinners.
- “Happiness Headlines” Challenge. Mom It Forward encouraged #GNO Gals to perform random acts of kindness and write blog posts about them during the month of December to spread holiday cheer. You can read the original post here and the amazing submissions starting with this one (they were all posted Christmas week.)
- Christmas Caroling. Part of our Mom It Forward plans for 2009 are to start a Mom It Forward organization with local chapters. In December, we beta tested the local chapter idea. We got together with several moms—either those we had met during #GNO or those in the Utah blogging scene—and planned a service activity to give back to our local community. Our goal was to plan an activity we could do before Christmas and involve our families. We ended up going Christmas Caroling to an assisted living facility. Visit our Facebook Group (called Mom It Forward) to see pictures from our first meeting and the service project (in the photo gallery).
Scheduled Service-Related Events
- The Magic Wand. In December, Mom It Forward won one of the HP Magic Giveaway contests, including $6,000 worth of HP products. You can see our entry post here and our acceptance post here. The contest we won was run by @sugarjones from http://living-intheory.com and we were announced the winners on her blog post entitled “How Many Times Can I Say “Amazing” in Five Minutes?”.
We are taking our turn with the Magic wand to spread the HP Magic, starting Tuesday, January 27 when we launch the new Mom It Forward community site. We are sharing the bounty with four women from the #GNO we have identified as in need. We have fun ways planned to get the gifts to them and will be announcing them in video format once a week for four weeks.
- Mom It Forward Nashville. In February, Mom It Forward’s #GNO will be in the house at the Blissdom Conference. After the conference ends, we will have two events: 1) a Tweet Up Saturday night at 8:30 p.m. (more of a mix and mingle) and 2) a service project in true Mom It Forward style Sunday morning from 9-11 a.m. at the Nashville Rescue Mission.
Plans for 09
- Website Launch. We’re launching a social networking site so our group has more of an online community to participate in. We will still have our #GNO Tuesday Twitter parties, but #GNO will be one piece of the Mom It Forward movement. All aspects of that movement will share a common goal to strengthen families and communities by first strenthening moms.
- Team Mom It Forward: We want the Mom It Forward community to be shaped and grow based on community member involvement and feedback. We have a survey up on our homepage (top left in red) that asks for group member’s ideas, direction, feedback, and help in shaping our website. We are basing a lot of our website development decisions on community input and can’t wait until we have our Team Mom It Forward in place to get even more input and help.
- Mom It Forward Organization: In February, we will form the national organzation of Mom It Forward and allow community members to join and start their own local chapters.
