Friendly Reminder

Hi All! I trust your Monday morning is going well and that you had a wonderful weekend.

This post is going to be a bit more sentimental than some of the other ones, but I felt that it was something that I needed to share for today.  So as many of you know, I work in downtown Detroit and commute a rather long distance to work there.  Honestly, working in Detroit is such an amazing thing and I have really learned to appreciate the city and all of it's wealth.  But that being said, Detroit is still an impoverished city.  

Every day that I drive to and from work I pass at least five homeless men and it always breaks my heart to see them suffering.

Justin and I have always talked about what we could do to help serve them and the only thing that has come to mind is giving food and other necessities to them but due to our busy schedules we have never done anything.  We've wanted to stop and give them our food before but due to the locations that they sit on, unless you are the person stopped in the front of the line at the light, you really cannot do anything without blocking traffic majorly.

Today, however, was the first opportunity that has presented itself for me to help serve one of the people living on the streets.  On my way into work, I was stopped at a red light and saw a man sitting there.  He had a sign up that said, "Help me, I'm homeless.  Anything will help".  I knew right then that I had to give him something.  Since Justin had packed my lunch for the day, I grabbed my sandwich and gave it to the nice man.  You know what he said? "God bless you".  And for the first time ever, that phrase really struck me hard.

Now, I want to let all of you know that I am not posting this because I want praise for the "kindness" that I did today because that is not what this post is about.  It is to talk to you about how profoundly this man affected my life today just by saying, "God bless you".  To be honest, I almost broke down into tears because of this interaction.  It struck me so hard that I have been taking advantage of what I am blessed with every day.  The fact that me giving a man a sandwich (a sandwich that I take to work almost every day and think nothing of) could be such a major blessing, made me realize that I have been taking for granted what I have been blessed with.  It made me realize that I need to start focusing more on what I do have than what I do not have and to start sharing my wealth with others instead of keeping it all for myself.

The most ironic part of everything that happened today was this quote I received in my Dove chocolate this morning.

So with all of this being said, I just wanted to send everyone a friendly reminder to be grateful for what you have because it truly is a wonderful gift.

Question of the Day:

What ways have you done a kindness for other people?

Good Old Fashioned Cosmic Bowling

I have to start this post out with this: I stink at bowling.  Like, so bad that I could not do well if my life depended on it.  But either way, I always have a great time when I go.  

We've all gone bowling as a group before, but we have not done glow bowling since we were probably in high school.  As always, you have to wear your customary glow in the dark clothing and you have to have highlighter and we sure did.  

Sarah made sure to bring along some yellow and orange highlighter, but unfortunately the orange does not glow in the dark so we were very limited to the yellow.  {I wonder if pink would work?} Sarah made sure to give each of us our own individual design.  Do you see Nick's cast? He was feeling extra festive when it lit up.

Unfortunately, the guys were not having anything to do with the highlighter, so us ladies were the only ones that ended up with any design on our face.   And because we took so long coloring and talking, the girls only ended up laying two games while the guys were at almost four.  Talk about an uneven competition!

Bowling got done around midnight, so we all made our way home for the night.  Overall, such a fun evening!

Question of the Day:

What is your favorite thing to do with your group of friends?

Bachelorette Party #1

Hi Everyone! I am SO sorry for my absence over the past few weeks.  I promise I have not forgotten about the blog, I've just been rather busy.

Hopefully between today & tomorrow I will be able to catch up and continue filling you all in with fun and exciting information! So the first big event: My cousin Jamie's bachelorette party!

For her party, all of us girls drove up to Grand Rapids for the evening.  The plan was to go do pottery painting, have a Pure Romance party, then go out bar hopping for the night! It sounded like a super fun night and it sure was!

For the pottery part of the party, we went to Naked Plates where we each got to paint an item of our choice.  I chose the travel coffee mug because it seemed like the item I would be most likely to use in our home and it was in the right price range for my budget.  

I never realized how much actually went into pottery painting! Not only do you have to paint the item, but you have to put three coats of paint of each color that you do.  That means if you have a rather intricate design, you are faced with a ton of layers of paint.  But in the end, I'm sure the products will be awesome.  I can not wait to see mine at the wedding!

After Naked Plates, we all headed back to my cousin's house for a Pure Romance Party.  I have to say, this was one of the most fun parties I have ever attended.  If you are not sure what Pure Romance is, then make sure to check out the link.  Essentially, the best way to describe Pure Romance is: Romantic Aids.  I'll let your imagination do the rest from there.  

After the Pure Romance Party, all of us girls got dressed up and ready to head out to the bars for the evening.  We all hopped into a cab and went to Mojo's Dueling Piano Bar where we had a few drinks and danced before heading out to The Bob.

After dancing out butts off, we finally grabbed a cab back to my cousin's house for the night where we all promptly crashed! 

I had such a great time celebrating Jamie's last fling before the ring and I cannot wait to celebrate her wedding in a few weeks!

Congratulations Jamie!