Focus on Service

I have put some thought into how my family can more actively serve our community and after some discussions in our family therapy time (to read more about that click here) this is what we came up with, every month we will focus on doing 1 act of service or volunteer or in some way reach out to our  community. We don't know what we will do each month but this month we are going to focus on wounded soldiers. I found a website where you can send care packages and cards to soldiers. We agreed that this month we are just going to send cards but plan to try to do a care package later on down the road. It looks like a great program if anyone is interested in doing something like this I'll leave the link below.

I went to our Dollar Tree and bought 5 packages of cards, the website offers some good tips and advice if you haven't ever done anything like this. We had a good time with this. My oldest daughter Kristin, who is 26, joined us and the 5 of us spent an evening writing out cards to wounded soldiers. Renee drew pictures on many of her cards and Kris wrote out funny poems.

This was a fun thing to do. It didn't cost much and we all enjoyed it. I haven't mailed the package off yet and I'm not sure if anyone will write back. I did include my post office box number and I hope we get  a couple of responses back, I think the kids would really get a kick out of that, if not though I'm glad we did this, I hope it cheers up a soldier that is maybe down or lonely.

Here is the link if anyone would like to send a soldier a card.
https://www.operationgratitude.com/

Van Living

 

                

   

I have become completely OBSESSED with the idea of this ever since I saw it a few months ago! One of my main life goals is to travel and I love the simplicity behind this idea! I can imagine throwing a mattress in the back of my van, loading it up with pillows, blankets, and some good books and just hitting the road! 

One of my favorite memories from my childhood was doing something similar, we had one of those old station wagons and we would lay the seats down and cover the backend with blankets and pillows and sleeping bags and go on long trips. I loved it! My sister and I would spend hours back there reading, playing games and listening to music, it was an amazing experience.

There is a part of me that longs for this type of life, heck right now I'd settle for a 1-week vacation like this! There is something so simple and appealing about the idea of life on the road, living out of the back of your van, stopping whenever the mood strikes. driving to beaches, deserts, mountains, maybe visiting some national or state parks. Someday I WILL absolutely do this!

If anyone else has this gypsy/ hobo/ wandering bug and you are ACTUALLY living this life, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE comment below or message me, get in touch, I want to hear your stories and live vicariously through your experiences until I can hit the road myself! If you have a blog recording your travels leave the link in the comments I'd love to follow you.