First, I want to mention how amazing it was to take a walk with my children (and my eldest daughter's BFF) today. I was DYING for a Dunkin Donuts Iced Pumpkin Spice latte and the closest Dunkins is about a mile and a half from our home. It's a stone's throw while driving but walking with 5 children is a bit harder. :-p
That three miles made me feel A-mazing! I used to walk there and back nearly every night. I know that compared to some, a three mile walk is nothing but I have great metabolism when I'm not sitting on my ass playing video games and e-blogging. True story.
Unfortunately, my husband - who is very eager to please - fed me everything I asked for while pregnant with our youngest, Juliet. Needless to say I got waaay our of shape! OK, maybe not "waaay" to most people, but for miss size 5 over here, I felt like a giant air balloon or what I liked to affectionately call myself...baby beluga. And yes, I even sang the song by the Wiggles. If you don't know it, look it up on youtube and I promise...you will laugh - maybe until you pee - I guess it depends on your sense of humour.
So, the walk was phenomenal and I feel like a million bucks! That's not the amazing thing that happened today. A few of you are going to say "big friggin deal" but it's huge to me. You see, as a teenager I was a miserable, depressed, people hating entity that wanted to drown herself in rock music (Nirvana, AIC, Pearl Jam...etc) and draw depressing pictures of people crying whilst huddled in a corner. Yeah, I was a ray of fucking sunshine, let me tell you. But as I got older, I started to change. I had children, met a great guy...yeah, kinda in that order...then had another awesome baby who made my life that much brighter. I'm always positive now - to the point where people want to strangle me - and I have restored my hope in humanity.
Now, all of that being said, I have had a NASTY experience with some people who own a couple of dog rescues lately. I mean, to the point where I think it may be a bad idea for people to adopt. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I am an avid animal lover and support/donate to no-kill shelters/rescues and these people even had me questioning. That is a very, very difficult thing to accomplish! Anyway, I was losing my faith in people - I have more confidence of the good in people than most - I was losing that! After meeting these ass monkeys who call themselves "angels" for these dogs!
Today, while walking back from our local Dunkins, a man was walking just about our pace carrying a shopping bag. He threw something in the rubbish that didn't quite make it so he walked back and made sure that it stayed. I thought "Wow, that's nice. Most people don't do that." We all kept walking and he was still walking about our pace when we came upon a woman coming out of a store. She dropped her receipt on the ground and the man politely said "Excuse me, you dropped your receipt. It blew that way." She looked at him funny but said thank you and kept going, without picking up her paper. We walked on, up a hill that ran parallel with the parking area...and I just happened to look down as the woman was getting out of her car and picking up her piece of paper. She got into her car and started to drive away but then thought better of it and went across the parking area just to pick up her paper.
Seem ridiculous that I would write a blog about this? Perhaps you're right and I'm really just a silly woman but I like to think that man changed her mind. He made a difference in that one person and somehow changed her mind without being intrusive or pushy. He was polite and sweet and she did the right thing. It means a lot to this silly blogger because I had just started to think to myself "what the HELL is wrong with people" and I began to lose the hope I had that - for the most part - people are good and do the right thing! He rocked my damn world!! I wanted to catch up with him and thank him but I had two giggling 8 year olds straggling behind and he got too far ahead. So, this is my way of thanking him...by writing a blog to show the world that there is hope and by just saying the smallest thing or making the tiniest gesture, you make a difference!!
And I don't even need a damn coffee, I already had one and this guy has me pumped on renewed hope!