Blessing Bags

I spend a lot of my time on Pintrest.

A LOT OF TIME!

However there are many wonderful "blessings" that come from such devotion to this wonderful world of pins.   At KWAV's (Kids with a Vision) blog Ali B. posted her idea for "Blessing Bags".

Have you ever been at a gas station just minding your own business when a stranger walks up to you asking for some change? Have you ever lied and told them you didn't have any change because you were afraid they would spend that money that you worked hard for and then graciously give away, to buy alcohol or cigarettes? Have you ever told the truth that you didn't have change but truly wished you could help them? Have you ever just been so full of love that you wish you could help anyone you crossed paths with that seemed to need a little pick me up?

I have......

SO when I ran into her blog via pintrest I was more than thrilled to be introduced to the loving blessing bags, because everyone in this world needs just a little something to brighten their day.

I was so excited to do these, I just needed to DO IT!

When I went shopping a few weeks ago I had the full intention of buying things for others. I went to the dollar store and loaded up my cart with TONS of items, being giddy the whole time. When I was ready to check out I let others with only a few things go in front of me. One of the girls I had a nice conversation with. She asked me questions and told me stories of her own: are you doing these through an organization of some sort? That's cool. When I lived XYZ my family did something like this. I think it's really awesome that you're doing this. I told her that I wasn't doing it through and organization I was just doing it because I wanted to because I love people and want to help them out. There were a few other people behind me that seemed a little grumpy and I couldn't blame them. It was a dollar store for cryin' out loud and here was this crazy lady with a cart full of stuff while they held one or two things. It made me realize that I shouldn't judge others on the amount of things they have in their carts because it might not even be for them and I need to be more patient also. When it was my turn I told the cashier that it might be awhile and that I had separate transactions (I was also buying things to do birthday bouquets  which I will do in a latter post- for a friend and the little boy I babysit.) She was super patient and bubbly and I was SO grateful. We also began talking and I explained to her that everything I was buying wasn't for me. I told her it was for some birthdays and the majority of it was for helping with the needs of others. Taking care of the basics for a few days. I thought she was going to cry. She thought that that was the coolest thing she had ever heard and she was even more caring while checking out my items. I was so blessed to have such a wonderful cashier! I walked out of that dollar store feeling like a million bucks and little did I know that my first opportunity would arise that very same day! I continued my grocery shopping, ending the long day at Wal-Mart. Soon it was time for me to go and pick up my sweet husband after his classes and there was a older women outside on the corner of the street with a sign saying something along the lines of "Any Help Appreciated". I thought about my unorganized blessing bags and felt that I needed to give one to her. "But I don't have it put together." "She needs one." "But I'm so tired from the day of shopping." "Why did you buy these things? To help." I pulled off on the side of the road after having driven past her and through together a Blessing Bag as quickly as I could. I then drove back to her pulled aside again to not cause an accident or anything and then I ran towards her feeling like a super hero. I was so full of love for this woman I never met that I had to give her a hug. I handed her the bag and asked for her permission to hug her. She didn't really respond, she just kept saying thank-you. I hugged her and told her I hoped it would help. Then I walked back to the car and got  in. On my way to pick up my husband I sobbed the whole way. I felt so much love surrounding me and I knew in that moment that I had done what my Father in Heaven wanted me to do. Even if it meant nothing to her, it meant a great deal for me. I got home and for awhile the bags of things just sat there and I knew from the moment I wanted to make them that I was going to do a blog post on my own blessing bags, I just haven't yet, I wanted my husband to help, <enter lame excuses here>. Finally I just took an hour or so and put them together and I LOVE the way they turned out! No more awkwardness, no more obligation; just lots and lots of LOVE. After I finished the bags I still didn't write the blog post, no excuse, I just didn't. And now I AM! YAY! I have already had three people come into my apartment and see and question the blessing bags. They loved them so much that they wanted all the details! So here you are! Dedicated to my good friend Liesl, my grandma Jones, and my grandma Gunnel! May you have as much fun as I did making these!

Blessing Bags:

*Note* I loved one of the comments on Ali B's Blog that said to think of food items that are soft. A lot of these people have little, rotting, or no teeth!

-Band-aids (I did band-aids that were weather proof and some that had antibiotic already on it)

-Cough drops

-Trail Mix

-Crackers

-Vienna Sausages

-Apple Sauce

-Pudding

-Toothbrush with cap

-Travel Toothpaste

-Soft Breakfast bars

-Comb

-Chap-stick with SPF in it

-Expandable Washcloth

-Dried Apricots 

-Deodorant ( I did arm-n-hammer for the guys and Secret for the ladies)

-Lotion ( I did an unscented for the guys and a coco butter for the ladies) 

-Travel Tissues

-Water Bottle

-Breath Drops (or travel sized mouth wash and/or mints)

-Plastic Spoon

-To Go Wipes

-Light Pads (For the Ladies.) 

-A Plastic Sandwich bag (For their trash or dirty pads, etc.) 

-A bag to put them all in! ( I just did grocery bags! Or you could do gallon zip up bags)

Blessing Bags all wrapped up:

Since I put them all in grocery bags and I did some for guys and others for ladies I had the thought to tie the bags with pink or blue ribbon so I'd know which are which. Each bag came out to about $10 bucks for me (maybe a little bit more for the band-aids, toothpaste, and wipes that I didn't find at the dollar store) I also wrote a note of encouragement and the local food banks and shelter in case they needed more long term help and didn't know where to look because they were stranded from some other city or state or just because they didn't know.

Note of encouragement:

"Hello! We couldn't help but notice that you could use a little "pick-me-up". Inside are all the things we thought you could need or use such as food, water, and sanitary supplies. You ARE being looked out for and you're not alone. You are a child of God and he loves you. Don't get discouraged! Do not lose hope. Remember "you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem  and smarter than you think"-Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh. Have A Wonderful Day!"

Then underneath the message is the name of the food center, their address, and their phone number in case they have change or you wish to provide enough for a call in the bags. 

Have fun blessing and being blessed!

M.E.G

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

 

  

Valentines Day- Passport to Love

For the real and true version to the "Passport to Love" please visit "The Dating Diva's" Blog by clicking here. They have SO many fun date ideas...I LOVE their blog! LOVE IT! They were actually holding a contest on the Dating Divas and the winner was Rebecca. All hail Rebecca for her GENIUS date idea.

I know I immediately fell in love with it and so will any other travel-wanna-be-organized dates for a year-kind of person.

I wanted to do it SOO badly, but I didn't know when I would make it for Dax and when to give it to him.

The opportunity arose in a random role play that Dax and I were going through one night. (See other blog about role playing).

You see I was a doctor and I found out that Dax had a serious case of the Meganitous disease. Not extremely  contagious, so don't worry you won't become obsessed or fall in love with me or anything, there isn't really much of a cure, and it's very serious.

Anyway, he was obviously worried and asked me if I knew of a specialist with Meganitous.

Of course I did! However, this specialist was kind of crazy and she lived in a magicalland and worked from home. (Sounds a little iffy doesn't it.) She only goes by her first name, ALWAYS changes her number (because she doesn't want anyone to know), and she's really A-specious (as my younger sister Ruby would say Suspicious. Of course the word is probably more amusing to me because when I heard her say it for the first time: "hmmm" She said on the phone. "What Ruby?" I asked and in reply she said "My toe jam is A-specious. I still can't stop laughing. )

So Dax thinks he has this specialists number and he tries to text it. A reply comes back saying that it wasn't the person he wanted to reach but that she knew where Doctor Megan lived and could him him the exact adress. She suggested he write her a letter seeing if she could see him and then meet up with his travel agent.

LIGHTBULB!

If I was Dax's Travel Agent that would be the PERFECT opportunity to give in the lay out on all the great deals for all these awesome destinations.

He sent Doctor Megan a letter leaving his number and she called back using the *67 to keep her number secret.

This specialist is kinda creepy if you ask me...

She can see him but before they make an appointment he better see a travel agent to get all the arrangements for when he was going.

The travel agent just happened to be the person he text in the first place! (Weird coincidence)\

They made a appointment for the following Tuesday at 3:30pm.

During this whole time the idea started off as just coping what was on the blog and it grew until it became this:

On the original blog about this "Love Passport" You receive a card:

A travel Itinerary:

A passport:

and the link to the passport.

Passport stamps(Seen above, kind of) and the link to those.

and airline tickets:

and THEIR link. 

WELL I couldn't just stop there. 

This idea welled inside of me and I went crazy. 

The Travel Agent had to cancel for a WEEK because "some people she was receiving things from was REALLY busy. She was out of brochures and the LoveBrochureCompany was really behind in making 13 brochures for cryin' out loud.

....I couldn't just be simple could I....

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!

I made A single pricing list, a packaged plans and deals list, a passport application, AND a Love Security Application (not to be confused with a SOCIAL security number. Completely different.)  

Needless to say I was very busy for a week but I loved it...and now I'm kind of sad since it's all finished...so I'm sharing it!

I felt pretty professional yesterday with my heart shaped approval stamp/seal and all of my know-how.

It was a lot of fun having him fill out all these forms and look at the different brochures and helping him plan which country he wanted to go to in which month for the whole next year!

I told him I would send in his applications and get him airline, hotel accommodation, and other activities all set up and that he should be receiving it all in the mail shortly. 

Mail= his backpack while he is at school on Valentines Day (aka Tomorrow). HEE HEE!!! 

How it will look when he opens the envelope

So yes it took me forever and no you don't have to do this and I won't be offended or think less of you for taking the easier shorter route (heck I might have even done it if I knew it would take this long!) I'm really glad I did all of this because it gave me something to do while Dax is gone at school or work and I learned a lot about the different countries which makes me even MORE excited to be traveling to them all, all this next year with the love of my life! I love the fact that dates are more-or-less planned for every month for a year...usually it's: " I really want to do something," "me too" "What should we do" -one hour later after complaining about how going out and doing ANYTHING (especially in winter) is going to cost money we don't have)- "I guess we'll watch a movie...again..." With this I pretty much know what we're doing and when and it gives me more to look forward to when the word "date" is mentioned. Also it'll all make a great keep sake for when we're older. 

We can say we traveled the world for less that 300 bucks. (That's about 20 dollars per date allowance for a year. Dax and my deal has been "20 dollar dates" if it's anything more it better be once in awhile or else TOO BAD.)

I hope you enjoyed looking at it as much as I've loved creating it. 

XOXOXOX

-M.E.G

P.s. If you ever do want any of the brochures or anything I can figure out a way to give them to you! I mean I did spend all the time on it and then you won't have to!

Update: 2/8/2014

It's been almost a whole year since I did this post and we've maybe done 3 months out of the 12. Maybe due to busy schedules? The few that we did do I didn't really enjoy all that much anyway. The definition of a date to me is keeping it simple. Not spending all my time trying to make the apartment look like a country and spending a ton of time in the kitchen. I don't want to do that! It's a date, I want to be spending time with my hubby and enjoying one another company. So overall this was really fun to create and could be great if revised, but it just didn't work out for Dax and I last year. 

 

A Tribute to "Da Man"

My husband and I like to role play...

A LOT.

In fact saying "a lot" is a bit of an understatement since there isn't a day that goes by that we are not being super silly.

Sometimes we pretend we're Russians and if my husband isn't too shy or put on the spot when asked to give some examples of accents that he does- you'd know he is really REALLY good at them.

Sometimes we pretend we're part of the mafia. We look around suspiciously and then lean into each other and ask if the other "gots da money" or "gots da stuff".

Sometimes we pretend that we don't like affection. We over-exaggerate by becoming stiff and making silly faces as though we were completely revolted by the amounts of kisses! When "Da Man" first started this I will honestly tell you I was a little offended. however this is not a surprise since I find myself unfortunately easily offended. And then I found myself doing it back to him and found out that it was extremely fun. Why? Because the other person adds MORE kisses and saying like "oh come on! How do you know you don't like it if you won't try it."

...

I think I have way too much fun with this. :)

Sometimes we even pretend we're two people that have never met before (this actually happens all the time!) Sometimes my hubby is my doctor, sometimes he's the paramedic that is giving me CPR when I've "passed out". wink wink. hahahaha. Sometimes my hubby is my private massage therapist. Or sometimes it's the other way around completely.

If all this role playing was real life I'd have some serious health issues.

Most often with role playing it makes intimate life more interesting but still clean and pure the way God intended it.

I've realized that role playing has helped the hubby and I in so many ways. It helps us to have fun.

But even with role playing, the laugh's and the fun there are times where I just don't feel myself somehow.

I'll say mean things and then think that I already did this that and the other thing, I guess I can't be a good wife anymore" just because I had said those few mean, awful and hurtful things.

I couldn't stop, either.

Whenever I would try to be a little nicer my hubby would just do something that would irritate me. OR at least those WERE my thoughts.

And then I would say mean things again.

I would let all the dishes pile up because I just didn't feel like doing them.

My hubby after working all day with me -as we clean a large house for a part time work- having to listen to me complain the WHOLE time. I even snapped at him because I wanted to finish moping the dang floor! He only needed to walk on the floor for not even a minute to grab a few things and then I could mop that part.

But I didn't let him...

And why not?

It seems so simple and harmless and yet I wanted to rip into him for disrupting the thing I was hating to do at the moment.

Then we go home and he does the large pile of dishes.

I kept slipping. Just letting him do things and then getting mad at him for doing them. I wasn't sure how to stop in my tracks and start over and be a wife he could love.

I then read.

A lot of things coming from Pintrest. All of the things you should do for and with your hubby so that you can be a more lovable wife. There were lists of advice to do, but I wouldn't remember any of that! Either that or I would try too hard to remember and to do it right that my heart wouldn't be in it.

Then I read two very important things that I believe changed my perspective practically overnight.

1. Drops of Awesome- by "Daring Young Mom" Katherine Thomson
 I found it on Facebook. One of Da Man's aunts had shared it and I read the whole thing and even cried (an activity I've been doing a lot lately).
It's humorous as it talks about deep and serious thoughts that I've had. I read the whole thing thinking "wow. I really needed this right now".  She talks about how instead of focusing on all the things we didn't do in the past like letting the dishes sit in the sink until your husband does it and letting it ruin our now by continuing to wallow in self pity and play computer games instead of the nasty said dishes- we should force those thoughts out and just try to do something good to add a drop to our buckets of "awesomeness".

I've already caught myself saying "drop of awesome!" to myself whenever I do something good.

She even did an object lesson with a Church class that she writes about and just hit me over the head with a "duh" moment.

2. Dax's Journal.
My hubby wasn't ENTIRELY refusing to let me read his journal. It started last Sunday during church that I read one of his entry's. After Church I asked him if I could read more and I finished the "up to now" in 2 days. At first I would read some silly things he said about the girl he was infatuated with at the time and we would laugh (mostly me) and I would read his words in a mocking tone. He had told me the whole story between him and this girl so nothing was really a surprise when I read it.

 I got to a point where it began to mean something to me.

Something sweet and special.

These were honest and true feelings coming from the heart of the one I love.

He had had a long day and was sleeping next to me as I finished his heartfelt words.

When he wrote that she had hurt him badly and he was miserable- so was I.

When he wrote that he was nervous to pin her corsage on her- for prom- because he didn't want to touch her inappropriately;  I fell in love with him all over again. He must have thought I was teasing him since he rolled his eyes and did his half shoulder shrug I'm all to familiar with. I told him I was serious. This was his journal and if he wrote something like that, it shows his true character.

I'm not saying I ever doubted his character, just that reading his words from before he even knew I'd be reading them made it even clearer to me that I married a wonderful man who respects women.

He could have written something like "I was so nervous because of how close I had to pin her. Even though I secretly would want to I would never do something like that".

BUT HE DIDN'T.

That's just the person he's always been.

What kind of person did my journals say about me?

After this girl broke his heart, in a way, I read as he grew up into the man I married. The man who has a strong enough testimony in his savior Jesus Christ and what our brother has sacrificed for us, to say in the midst of the worst pain he would ever feel: "You know what? I know I'll be okay. I'll be okay because I know that Christ went through this same exact pain that I am feeling right now. He went through it just for me."

wow..

That right there is a moment I will remember forever. Through his pain, tears, and clenching teeth he was able to udder these words of amazing testimony.

Who does that?

I doubt I would have. I probably would've just cried and thought "ow ow ow ow ow! I wish it would go away".

He taught me a very special part of the atonement. Not only did "God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son"-John 3:16 But the son so loved the world that "11... he shall go forth, suffering pains and ^aafflictions and^btemptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will ^ctake upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.12 And he will take upon him ^adeath, that he may ^bloose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to ^csuccorhis people according to their infirmities." -Alma 7:11-12 (taken from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Website but can also be found in the Book of Mormon).

He, Dax, has always been and will forever be an example to me. He has such amazing faith and I enjoy having an eternity to learn from him.

After I read his journal a thought occurred to me. "He's a real man with real and true feelings. He may not show them or speak of them very often but they're, there." Have I given him anything that would cause him to write in his journal about how much I've hurt him? I don't want to even give him that opportunity!

I'm not perfect, but I am trying to get better.

Dax is the best husband I could ever asked for and I am so grateful to have the title of his wife.

xoxoxoxox

M.E.G