Thank you Card & Wonderful Surprises!

Good morning! It’s a Monday and I’m pretty thankful!! Thankful for so many things and overwhelmed from the weekend.
This card is just using ink and Hero Arts stamps. Simple.
The little hanging embellishment just came off one of my boys’ shoes. Too cute to throw away!!

You know it was my Birthday.
And a large one.
Some would say a depressing one.
Maybe just a significant happening- or a milestone. Possibly an occasion to reflect – but to give thanks? Definitely!!

In order not to feel sorry for myself that decrepit might start to describe me, I decided to take action.
So.. We planned and organised and created and had an absolute ball. You can’t read about the post that started it all as some one somewhere has temporarily suspended access to the link. Suffice to say- we did 40 random acts of kindness and it was a day we’ll never forget.
Here’s a picture of us loaded up and ready to go.

We had already delivered some flowers which had been reduced but were still in perfect condition ( I like to think that was Tesco’s random act of kindness!)
We gave them out to a few people and their reactions were really moving. I tell you- it was better than any birthday gift. You might want to try this- it’s a completely amazing experience and quite humbling as you see what effect a tiny simple act does to someone else.

It was an utterly family project and we taped a choc bar to the front door for the postie. Love that he replied with ‘ta’. It’s probably best not to describe in too much detail how removing that sign then took the paint off our front door ( oops- that’s a job for this week!!).

Most of the RAK’s were simple and inexpensive- cupcakes, little toiletry packages to the local old people’s home- some were really different like this one.

..as I drove by the next day- the sign was still up with some of the little ‘compliments’ having been carefully removed.
Some of them were fun

Some were practical-

And others were wacky.
One lady was spotted by my kids and they wanted to give her some chocolate. Each item had one of these one..

The lady they gave it to needed it explaining a couple of times ( we got that reaction – a lot!!). On our way out we passed by the same lady. She stopped the kids and said that the kindness needed repaying. I replied ‘oh , no, it really doesn’t’. She insisted and gave each of the kiddos a £1 coin. They were stunned, we were grateful and everyone was smiling.

One of the most bizarre was probably one of the cards I sent. I went on a postcode site and randomly selected an address. I have no idea who lives at the address I wrote to. I didn’t leave my details or surname- just penned a brief encouraging message. I smile when I imagine the shock someone got when opening it. He he!

We bumped into some people we knew and that was fun. One of the heartwarming things was when I left a box of chocolates out for the binmen. They hadn’t turned up when they were supposed to and a card and the chocs were taped to a bin but not addressed to them. A man knocked at our door with the chocolates in hand.
“Hi mate “( he said to Steve)
“Can I have these”
“Yes” said Steve “they’re all yours”
“Really? Oh thankyou mate, thankyou so very much” ( or something similar!)
He stuck his thumb up at Steve and left with a big toothless smile.
Just a brilliant experience. I would encourage you to do something similar. You won’t ever regret it.
Some of the ideas you’ll find floating around the Internet are amazing and would cost lotsa pennies. We did ours on a shoestring. I’m not convinced you need to spend oodles of cash. Yes, it would’ve been lovely to hand out gift cards and the like. But we did our pared down version and it still worked.
The surprises weren’t over.
We came home about 3:30pm- and I was shattered! Steve came home a bit later and presented me with a Birthday cake…

…that HE had made himself!!
What a guy! It tasted amazing. Had fresh raspberries ( my fave!) & I was so impressed. Loved it.
Then.. I was lured inaccurately to my lovely friend Helen’s house and there were a bunch of my best friends waiting to surprise me with a party!
I didn’t get any pics of them- but this was the present table

my friend Kate Moss is a wonderfully creative person and she’d come up with the idea. The presents were either ‘bottles’ or ‘books’ to go with ‘baker’ ( my surname!) and there was Jazz music, a table heaving with desserts

and a chilled night catching up and laughing with my friends.
One of my lovely friends Gill had made the most awesome carrot cake birthday cake and then was too ill to come 😦
Here’s ‘some’ of it!

Then lastly, out of the blue, to top it all off- some great friends of ours were too ill to go to an overnight hotel break and GAVE it to us Saturday morning.
So Steve & I spent a day here..

And by the time we’d come home, picked up our kids from the 3 families’ we’d deposited them in and spent the day with some friends from church, I can honestly say it was truly one of the best weekends of my life.
Thanks to many of you for the beautiful cards, gifts, messages and surprise party attendance.
I am blessed beyond compare having you all in my life!
xxxx

PS- my daughter randomly picked out the blog candy winner— JESSI! Jessi, please send me your address to the email at the top right of the blog! Thanks everyone xx