Giving

Brownie Troop volunteering at
Food Lifeline

I've noted in a few places that our girls are fairly generous as little girls go. Not so much with each other - I suspect most sisters are not - but with strangers in need. Leanna's mom is a resident manager in a women's and children's home, and Abby is a girl scout, so they get that people can be in need... even as they bemoan their first-world problems. Today was a good day on the giving front. Abby and her Brownie troop spent three hours packing bran muffin mix into single-baking portions at Food Lifeline. I dropped her off there and went to do a little shopping at the local QFC (how do we go through apple juice so quickly on the weekends?). 

Honestly, I mostly needed a break from all children. I like to think I'm a decent parent, but I do my best parenting when I have not had them on my own 24/7 for more than a couple days running. In other words, since Abby and Lizzy both had Thursday and Friday off this week, and my mom was out of town, I was feeling a little frazzled. So QFC it was. They were having their annual sampler day, apparently, wherein one can try many different holiday foods. That was kind of nice. And outside their doors was another group - this one was the Key Club from Shorecrest High School - doing a non-perishable food drive. 

Now, I don't have a lot of money - I've been unemployed since April - but the day I can't afford to dump $10 worth of food in a donation bin is the day I need their services myself. So I went through the store, and in addition to my apple juice and satsuma mandarins (yay! satsuma season) and Laston's bar-b-cue sauce, I got a half-dozen jars of baby food and some rice & beans for the donation bin.

This makes me feel good.

And when we got home, Abby and Leanna made birthday cards and gave up some of their Halloween candy to put in the cards as gifts for the neighbor boys, who both have birthdays this week. Generosity on a kid level, not organized by their parents.

This makes me feel even better.