My Favorite Auntie in Switzerland!

I really wanted to write a post today telling you about the Glimmer Care Package that I mailed out, BUT I also really want it to be a surprise for the person who gets it.  And I know if I post pictures of the funny things I put in the box, he or she would know it was for him or her.

So instead, I am going to write about two awesome glimmer moments of my day!  I hope you don't mind! :)

As I walked back into the post office I began to wonder if they ladies at the register would recognize me.  I tossed my "If it fits it ships" box up on the counter along with a few bills and a Netflix DVD I have had for wayyyyy too long.  When I looked up the lady behind the counter said "I just have to tell you, I kept that card you gave me but I did do something for someone!!"  :)

She told me how she went to her neighbors house and cut the grass for them.  But she said she kept the Glimmer Card and is now using it as a bookmark.  I guess to remind her of the project!  :) 

Now speaking of mail... I got the best glimmer surprise and encouragement in my mailbox yesterday.  When I opened the tiny little box up I saw this card smiling back at me. 

I first saw the words "AIR MAIL" and then recognized the hand writing and got excited because I knew it was a letter from my aunt in Switzerland.  

She is famous for making her own, simple note cards that I love.  I will bet that she took this photo somewhere, then printed it out and glued it on the card... cute idea right?  And it saves a good deal of money when it comes to buying expensive singing Hallmark Cards!  

I open the card up and a fifty dollar bill falls out.  NOT WHAT I WAS EXPECTING AT ALL.  And then I read the sweetest note.  

Dear Susan,

Thank YOU for the sunshine and glimmer that you've brought to my life.  

Please use this $ to buy some more glimmer cards.  

I'll continue to follow your project.

Much love,

A. Beth

I immediately called her up to say thanks.  It was nice because we don't get to chat on the phone too often.  So yeah, I have to send a HUGE thank you post to my favorite Auntie in Switzerland!  This money will be put to great use!  I already have a few project ideas in mind!  Thank you thank you thank you!  

Glimmer on a Rainy Day!

I woke up this morning to 60 mph gusts beating on my windows and Severe T-Storm Warnings flashing on my television.  Definitely not what I would call an ideal morning to drag yourself to the gym at 6:30am, buttttt I did it anyway.  And it was great, because no one else was there!  :)

The point of that ramble was to set the mood of the day for you.  Anyone in the Hampton Roads area will agree with me, it has been one crazy weather day!  Windy, dark, dreary, rainy, warm then cold, then warm again.  Did I mention windy?!  And I just looked out my window and the sun is beaming and the skies are blue!!  *Cue the Beatles tune - 'here comes the sun... dee dee dee deeeeee'*

I spent an hour at the post office mailing out work stuff and glimmer cards.  My glimmer receipt alone was longer than my arm!  I had about 20 people behind me in line.  I could feel their glares as I pulled out 10 more Project Glimmer envelopes.  (I chose to not make eye contact with anyone when I finally finished up!)

In the midst of this rainy afternoon I quickly visited the Dollar Store.  A shout out to my local readers - if you have not checked out the Dollar Store off of Battlefield (between Sams Club and Walmart) you should.  It is by far one of the best Dollar Stores I have ever been to!  Well I may have gotten a tad bit carried away as I was gathering things for my care packages of kindness.  I ended up walking out of that store with enough goodies to get me through a couple weeks of random acts of kindness!  And I used the first one today!

Despite the fact that is was rainy and cold, I thought these were the cutest things!  I'm not going to lie, I bought the striped ones and the pink one for myself and grabbed the blue one for a doorstep!

I headed out of the obnoxious parking lot, which is even more obnoxious when it's raining because people are crazy.  I wish I could tell you I left this on a random stranger's door step, but I didn't.  I headed directly to my sister's condo with the hope that she did not go home for her lunch break.  

I was in luck!  Neither her or her roommate were home.  So I left this glittery, glimmery blue pin wheel flower at their front door to greet them when they got home on this rainy day.

But now, since the sun has come out, it looks like they will find this glittery, glimmery flower reflecting the sunlight! :)  

Did you partake in any random acts of kindness on this rainy cold day?  Tell me about it! 

Care Package Kindness!

I put my thinking cap on and tried to come up with some things people have done for me in the past that totally made me smile.  I hate to confess this, but I was stumped for a little while!  So I went for a walk on this gorgeous 86 degree weather day.  When I got to my mail box it hit me... when I was in college I used to love getting care packages!  It was the greatest feeling to check my little tiny jmu mailbox only to find a slip of paper that said I needed to pick up a package!

Now, I'm not in college anymore, which only means one thing when it comes to the mailbox.  Bills, bills, and more bills!  Which is far from a random act of kindness!  So I decided that this week I will be sending out care packages to a few friends and acquaintances!  

I made my list of 4 people and tonight I will be hitting up the dollar store looking for a few goodies!  None of these people will be expecting it.  And they're probably not reading this blog so hopefully it will be a surprise!  

Stay tuned - I will share my tales of care package kindness with you throughout the week!  Let me challenge you... pick a friend, maybe someone you haven't talked to in a while.  Send them something thoughtful and random!  I'm sure it will bring a smile to their faces!

A Drive-thru Thank you!

An email from Nicole in Virginia Beach, VA:  

Ok, so I don't have the cards yet...but was anxious to get started anyway!  I was at the drive thru of Dunkin Donuts at Great Neck and 1st Colonial Rd in VA Beach this morning and paid for the order behind me!!  It was funny because I could see the lady talking to the girl at the drive thru and looking confused as I drove away.  I'm hoping it made her day as opposed to torturing her trying to figure out who did it!  I know it made mine :) LOL

Just goes to show you how we don't need Glimmer Cards to do something nice for someone!  Thanks for doing such a great thing for someone Nicole!  You made me smile this morning as well! :)

Yellow Flower Tuesday!

I'm going to be honest with you... today started out rough.  Customer Service issues, cranky people, bad drivers, bad moods!  This was exactly what my morning revolved around.  And then I realized it was Day 2 of The Project Glimmer Kick Off Week.  And here is what I did:

I headed out with a bundle of yellow daisies after lunch!  

First Stop: Wachovia Drive Through!  I needed to make a deposit.  There were two ladies working the windows so I sent two flowers and two cards!  They both smiled! :)

Second Stop:  Verizon.  I hate going into the Verizon store.  But I wanted to go in and talk to someone about the costs of the ipad and/ or the mobile internet options they have.  Typically I feel like going into Verizon is like doing your time at the DMV.  Long and painful.  But not this time!! A lady named Rosie was super helpful, got all of my questions answered within 5ish minutes, and had me out the door with a smile on my face.  Because of her friendliness and patience, I experienced great customer service!  So I went back in and asked for her.  Sadly, she was busy, but I asked another lady to leave a couple of flowers and a card for her.  When I was explaining myself I heard a few other people around me say "Awww" and smile.  

Third Stop:  MacCarther Mall. My roommate asked me to make a trip to the Apple Store with her.  She has been having issues with her macbook (unheard of, I know!) and has been in there several times.  Since this was probably going to be a stressful trip we decided to take some flowers along.  Before we went in to the mall, we left a couple flowers on several cars windshields, along with a Glimmer Card.  We had a few extra flowers that we decided to leave in the ladies & family restroom as well.  

We put these the the door handle instead of the windshield... 

(Blurry to protect the identity of the Jeep!)  Since I drive a jeep I HAD to leave a couple flowers on this one!

Family Bathroom, first floor of MacCarther Mall.  

We figured that even if the Janitor is the one who finds this, it will be worth it!  

Luckily it was a very happy trip when the manager at the Apple Store said they would replace her dud laptop with a brand new laptop!  Since our spirits were up, we decided to stop by the restrooms to see if anyone had found and taken the flowers yet.  Sadly, no, not yet.  But we figured even if it is a Janitor who finds them, then hooray! :)

When we were heading back to the car I glanced around, wondering if anyone had found the other flowers yet.  It was actually really funny, because timing is everything!  As we were getting closer to our car we saw a guy pulling the flowers and card off of his windshield.  He looked around, like he was SUPER confused and then climbed into his car.  We just looked like two innocent shoppers walking out of the mall, so unless he saw the funny smirk on my face, he had no clue it was us who left the flowers for him.

Last Stop.  The Parking Garage Lady. I'm honestly not really sure what her title is, but she is the lady that sits in the booth, while leaving the parking garage, to collect our money.  (It's not a toll, but a.... help me out... what's the word??)  Anyway, Caitlin handed her the ticket and she told us we owed $2.  When Caitlin passed her the $2 she had two yellow flowers with it.  This lovely lady had the biggest grin on her face as she smiled back at us and said "Thank You."

So that's it ladies and gentlemen.  Day two of the Glimmer Week Kick Off!  What do you think?  Give me your feed back!  Did you get a flower?  Let me know!  

Glimmer Card Batches!

Yesterday evening I spent some time getting the Glimmer Card packets put together for the group of people  who emailed me their addresses.  Here's what they looked like:

Get excited if you are expecting one in the mail!!  

As part of my kick off week I decided to include a little special something for four of you though!  A random act of kindness from me to you!

You might be wondering how I picked which four would receive this special treat.  Since I was sitting in the parking lot of the post office, I couldn't go to the random picker online, so I used the next best thing!

Chloe "picked out" four random envelopes for me!

All of the packets (except for one who emailed me her address literally as I was pulling out of the post office parking lot) have been shipped out!  If you are local, you might get it today!  Otherwise, be on the look out for your cards Wednesday and Thursday! :)

PS.  I still have 6 batches of Glimmer Cards that need a good home!  Do you or someone you know want to get involved?  Let me know!  I will mail them to you asap!

The First Glimmer Card!

The First Glimmer Card!  Kick Off Monday!  Both pretty exciting if you ask me!  I'm so ready to get this project rolling, and from the sounds of it, so are a lot of you!  I cannot believe we have over 70 facebook fans and 30ish people who are following the blog (because they clicked that little follow button right over there ----->  and you should too!)

So here we go!  The first random act of kindness!  I wish I had done something so much more creative, but stay tuned... I will try to think something up for the rest of the week.  Anyway, what did I do?  Well let me show you!

I baked cookies!!  And when I say baked, I use it very loosely.  I was in Newport News at my boyfriend's house and he didn't really have the "tools" necessary to bake from scratch, so I resorted to this!  Cookie dough from the tube!  :)

I'm not going to lie, we tasted a couple.  You really would've thought they were home made, not tube made.  

Then I made him PROMISE me that he would pick one of his neighbors and deliver the cookies.  I got a text message this afternoon saying "mission accomplished."  

And of course I made sure he took the Glimmer Card along too!

So there you go.  Simple, delicious, random act of kindness.  Let's get this project rolling!  I mailed out a ton of cards today (actually only 260) to those of you who have emailed me your address.  I think I have 6 more packets of Glimmer Cards left to send out into the world!  Let me know if you want one!

Do you have an idea of a random act of kindness I should do?  Leave it in the comment section below!

ps. sorry about the poor picture quality... they are from the droid because the camera was MIA :)