Ding Dong Ditch Valentines

We celebrated our Valentine’s Day this year with Random Acts of Kindness.  I wanted to come up with something new and different to do.  My inspiration came last month when a group of teenage boys decided to play a game of “ding dong ditch” throughout the neighborhood late one night.   It’s a little aggravating and bit disrespectful, but it normally wouldn’t be a really big deal at our house.  I’m most likely awake at that time and luckily my kids will typically sleep through about anything.  But that night we had a special baby visitor with us and she was finally sleeping peacefully when when the doorbell set off our barking dog alarm.   Waking a sleeping baby without good reason is the ultimate sin.  After opening the door to no one, I happened to spot two teenage boys pretending to take a leisurely walk down the street and another one pretending to be out for a jog.  Like any sane person would do, I set up a stake-out and caught the little thugs on their way back past my house.

They weren’t really thugs.  They were typical (polite, actually) teenage boys who thought they were being funny.  They didn’t think about the babies they woke up or the people who panicked and expected bad news when their doorbell rang at that time of night.  We talked for a few minutes and I made them two deals.  The first was to gather the rest of their friends and head home without ringing another doorbell or I’d track them down again and escort them home myself.  The second was that if they ever rang my doorbell and ran off again, they had to leave cookies for me in the process.

That was my “ah-ha” moment when I felt like a genius.  I could combine their desire to ring doorbells and run away with my desire to do random acts of kindness.  Let’s be honest…ringing someone’s doorbell and running away is awesome fun.  Our family “Boos” people for Halloween and it’s one of the most fun things we do.  There is nothing quite like planning and executing the perfect getaway.  My 13 year-old is awesome at it.  So good actually that it scares me a little.  How did he get so good at being so sneaky?  Me?  I’m not so good.  I have unfortunately been caught a few times.  (Note: do not ever “Boo” the house of an Army Special Forces Officer unless you are very good at it and exceptionally fast.  He WILL hunt you down.)

I enlisted some help from my son Josh and 5 of his friends.   I baked chocolate chip cookies and packaged them up with a RAOK tag.   After filling the boys up with pizza, I sent them out into the neighborhood to deliver 20+ packages of cookies.  They headed out for their fun and were quickly rewarded with blizzard-like conditions.  It didn’t take them very long to return home and I had to lock them up to keep them from heading back out to get frostbite.  (Middle school boys don’t always wear things like coats, hats, or socks, even in snow.)  The cookie packaging may not have looked perfect when they arrived on doorsteps, but I think it was a huge success.  Random acts of kindness were done and the boys had FUN.  Teenage boys had fun doing something nice for others…it melts my heart.  They had so much fun that I think I may be able to convince them to do something like it again.  However, I will probably wait until the weather warms up a bit so their parents won’t  worry that I’ll send them out in a blizzard again.  Sorry moms – I didn’t know!

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You can download the file here or by clicking on the image to the left.

Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine’s Day.

-K

Cookies for Kindness

It’s been almost two and a half years since I celebrated my 40th birthday with a Random Acts of Kindness extravaganza.  Friends, family and even strangers joined in to help me celebrate with Random Acts of Kindness of their own.  It was by the far the best and most meaningful birthday I’ve had.  After my birthday, I was contacted by a writer for the Tri-City Herald in Washington who was interested in sharing my story with her readers.  I recently reflected on how touching it was that she had written the article.  The next day I found an email from the author, Lucy Luginbill, in my inbox.  Lucy is now writing her Light Notes column weekly for their Saturday edition in addition to the online paper.   Lucy wanted to republish the article and share the story again with their readers.  Her email had more of an impact on me than she could have imagined.  I have recently been contemplating what to do with my blog – whether I should devote more time to it and sharing my Random Acts of Kindness or devote the little bit of free time I have to promoting my future bakery.

Lucy’s email was a clear sign pointing me in the right direction.  Of course I said yes to Lucy.  I am thrilled to have the article run again.  But I said yes to more than that article when I sent my reply.  I said yes to many more Random Acts of Kindness.  I said yes to sharing the stories.  I said yes to trying my best to inspire others to do acts of kindness.  The article ran yesterday in the Tri-City Herald and is posted online here.  Much thanks to Lucy for feeling compelled to share the story of my birthday celebration (twice now).  But I also want to thank her for reminding me to follow my heart by continuing this journey.

Giving away the smiley-face sugar cookies was one of our favorite Random Acts of Kindness from my 40th birthday.  (You can read more about all of the RAOKs here.)   Here is the recipe I use if you’d like to make your own cookies…

Sugar Cookies

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 3 cups (360 grams) flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Mix flour and baking powder in a bowl and set aside.  Cream butter and sugar in mixing bowl.  Add egg and vanilla and mix.  Add flour mixture and mix until combined.  Do not over mix.  Roll out dough and cut with cookie cutter.  Transfer to ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes or until edges are slightly browned.  Do not refrigerate dough.

For royal icing:  mix 2 egg whites, 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, and 3 cups powdered sugar.  Mix until smooth.  Add water 1/4 teaspoon at a time until icing is the desired consistency.  Use decorator bag to outline cookie with icing.  After outline dries, flood cookie with royal icing and let dry overnight.

Enjoy!

-K

 

Spread a Little Love

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner…  I’ll be celebrating the day by spreading a little love (okay carbs & sugar, but isn’t that the same thing?) into the universe.   Heart sugar cookies is one of the treats I’ll be delivering to people.  The kids and I have done this with sugar cookies before and it was a huge success.  They had so much fun handing out the cookies to unsuspecting people around town.  It ended up being one of their favorite RAOKs  – especially of the super shy, won’t talk to any stranger kid!  It must be cookie courage.

 

And here’s my other must-do RAOK for any occasion.  A Starbucks gift card ready for a new owner 🙂  I’ll attach the Valentine RAOK tag to it and have it ready for Valentine’s Day.

What ideas do you have for a Valentine’s Day Random Act of Kindness?  Download the Valentine RAOK tags here and use them when you spread a little love this Valentine’s Day!  Want to send a little love my way?  Share with me how you use the tags!

-K