A serious challenge, but so worth doing.

We've got one life.  We wish to live it well.
  Cami Walker, the author of the book--29 Gifts--How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life is a woman in her thirties who has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.  I loved the title of her book, so I bought it at Border's Going Outta Business Sale a few weeks ago and read it in a day.  It's an easy read, while also being a challenging, thoughtful one.  She was diagnosed with MS not long after her wedding day.  In the midst of losing so much of her autonomy (which she eventually gets back in some ways), she spoke with her spiritual advisor.  (I don't think Cami would say she was a Christian, but more so a collector and follower of many faiths.)  After Cami complained to her spiritual advisor of her inabilities, her spiritual advisor suggested to her to give away something everyday for 29 days.  While this advice could have been off-putting and was initially, Cami went for it.  The gift didn't have to be monetary, but could be your time, your advice, really just whatever might bring joy to another person.  She blogs about it, along with lots of others who have also took this idea to practice at http://www.29gifts.org/.  I liked reading the book first before I hopped onto the blog.  It made for a more meaningful ride.  But anyways, after I finished her book I wrote this:
Be generous even when you do not feel like it.
Forgive even when you don't want to.
Tell the truth even when you don't want to.
Write even when you don't want to.
Be honest even when you don't want to.
Go when it's really hard to go.
 Surprises will come in really wonderful ways. 

Smart kid, too bad it ain't gonna work.

A conversation heard over the weekend.

Mom and Dad with their 4-year-old boy and his 2-year-old sister Inara.

Dad--"I won't be going to church today.  Mom is just going to go and you two are going to stay home with me."
Big 4-year-old brother--"You go to church with mom and I'll stay home with Nara:-)."

Gone away is appropriate timing:-).

Ess Gee--"I can't believe you are making a cake right now."  Said at 10:00 pm tonight.
Me--"Ess Gee, Genius doesn't wait for the sun to rise, or the night to fall.  Genius happens on it's own time."
I say this as I am making a new Chocolate Flourless Cake recipe while in my pajamas. 
  But he's one to talk.  Just one hour ago, he had us take off the wooden door to our storage area on the outside of our house, so he could shave off 1/8th of an inch because it was sticking due to swelling and the weather.  We are out there in the dark with a flashlight, two recycle bins as our horses to lay the door across, and a super long extension cord with circular saw attached.  I'd rather be inside, licking two chocolate battered beaters at 10:15 pm any night, over saw dust and bugs bumping into our heads wondering what the heck are we doing out there that late at night.  Like I said though, genius doesn't wait for anyone:-).  We also got the genius idea yesterday to go out to Asheville tomorrow and stay for the weekend.  Mountain biking and hiking.  And chocolate cake.  Perfect weekend if you ask me!!!

Oh, no, she didn't.

Ess Gee went on an emergency call for work, helping out a resident who needed it.  She was an African American, Southern, older lady.  She asks Ess Gee all kinds of questions--"Are you married?  How long?  Have kids?"  Then she asks him, "Where did you meet your wife?"  Ess Gee responded, "At a bible study."  She said, "Oh, so you're a church going boy?"  Ess Gee, "I try to be."  Then she brings up a past fellow employee of Ess Gee's and said she asked, we'll call him Tim, if he attends church.  Tim told her, "I'll go to church when they get a smoking section."  She said, "I told him if he doesn't start going, he's gonna find himself in a real smoking section."  My, oh, my, oh, my:-).  That's a classic.