Touch Other’s Hearts by Going Through Their Stomachs!
July 12, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 24 Comments
10 Delicious Ways to Make a Difference This Week
Service doesn’t have to be bland or boring! Spice it up. Sweeten the pot. Make it delicious. Think of people that need a little love and touch their heart by going through their stomach during this week’s Summer of Service Challenge, sponsored by Campbell’s. How? By making and sharing a tasty treat, including one or more of the 10 ideas listed below!
For more ideas, join us for a great Girl’s Night Out (#gno) on Twitter this Tuesday night. And, please share a comment on this post with other ways to serve others by sharing a tasty treat.
- Make some baked goods—cupcakes, cookies, bread, muffins, etc.—and take them to a neighbor.
- Take a meal to someone in your community that is sick or needs a night off from kitchen duty.
- Spend one-on-one time with your children by having a cooking class with them to prepare dinner for the family! For a special treat, do a craft activity beforehand to make paper chef’s hats.
- Have a family activity where you make a tasty treat together, such as suckers, decorated sugar cookies, chocolate-dipped strawberries and pretzels, etc.
- Have a couple’s night in! Invite your closest friends over with their significant others for a fondue party. Play the newlywed game no matter how long everyone has been in their relationship.
- As a family, choose another family that needs some love or an act of kindness/service. Drop off an anonymous treat on their doorstep with a nice card telling them how much you love them.
- Organize a girl’s night out with your closest girlfriends and have a progressive dinner where you rotate houses during the meal, starting with appetizers, moving on to salad, heading to the main course, and ending somewhere else for the dessert.
- Treat your spouse or close friend to a dinner at his or her favorite restaurant!
- Make your family’s favorite meal and decorate the table special just for them. Devote the evening to family time by turning off phones, TV, etc.
- Make your children’s favorite cookies, making a different batch once a week until you’ve made all of their favorites. Don’t forget to include your favorite as well!
How Will You Give to Others This Week?
- What other ideas do you have for sharing a tasty treat?
- How has touching other’s hearts by going through their stomach 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 prizes from Campbell’s.
- Join #gno this Tuesday on Twitter to connect with other Mom It Forward moms about the challenge.
Inspiring Women—Strengthening Each Other Through Our Trials
June 26, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 8 Comments
I attended an event last night sponsored by Cherish Bound where I was taken back to my childhood as I listened to professional story tellers share their growing up tales. If I were an artist and could have captured one sketch of the room it would have included women laughing, sharing, talking, delighting in delicacies, and relishing in the beauty of a simple, yet rejuvenating girl’s night out. And yet, one element would have been missing, because how do you capture strength and dedication in a drawing?
If you could look closely—perhaps only possible through a 3D sketch, allowing you to go much further beyond the surface—you’d realize that the laughter and sharing was made up of far more than glee and fun. It was made up of experience, learning, and LIFE!
You’d learn that one woman in the room has breast cancer and had recently undergone a double mastectomy. One woman has Lupus and she made a choice to trade one night of connection for several energy-less days after. Of course, we only saw her laughter. One woman has had 42 staples in her head and 4 screws in her jaw from Epilepsy. Another is in and out of the hospital on a monthly basis with her toddler, hearing shifting diagnosis and unanswered questions. Yet another is fighting a court battle to keep her adopted son. A couple are on the brink of bankruptcy. More than one woman is pregnant and one in particular is experiencing the joys of all-day/all-pregnancy sickness. Another was experiencing her last hooray before uprooting her family to move them cross country for her husband’s education. More than one woman didn’t know a single soul in the room. One gal was recently divorced and many were single parents. A couple were empty nesters, vying for more time with their grandchildren. Yet another was fighting to keep her business afloat during these hard economic times. The list could go on, making the stories within the stories much deeper and richer in color.
But to look at the room—or the sketch I would have drawn—wouldn’t have told you all that. And yet, that strength, that dedication to endure and triumph through life’s challenges is what makes inspiring women out of us all. It connects us, draws us to each other, gives us the compassion and knowledge to support each other. Ultimately, it empowers us to change the world one mom at a time.
Today’s “inspiring moms” post is a dedication to women everywhere who have stories upon stories, some for public view and others under lock and key. The tightly woven and intricate patterns of your lives, with broken thread and mistakes and all, make the world a better place to be! Thanks for inspiring me!
