These made my day!

It really was a small thing I did.  Girl Scout cookie time approached and the little girls seeped out of their campfire circles.  Unfortunately, my good guy and I are trying to reduce our sugar intake.  He is a diabetic and I am too old to mess with my system any more.  But who can resist those sweet little faces?  And cookies?  My goodness!  What fun while helping a super cause.

My great-niece lives in the Detroit area, and she too, is a girl scout.  So when we received the annual request, I really wanted to support her.  I have another niece in Detroit who never had the chance to be a girl scout.  This special woman is developmentally delayed. Today, this niece lives with a group of women with similar challenges.  It was only logical to take my cookie budget and give it to people who could really enjoy the treat.  I sent off a small check to my great-niece and forgot about it.

That was over a month ago.

Saturday, I collected my mail. Bill, bill, junk, junk — hey! Wait a minute.  A big brown envelope was hand addressed to my good guy and me.  I didn’t recognize the return address because it mentioned some house name.

When I got inside, I opened that envelop first.  Inside I found a smiley sunshine, flowers, and “thank you” all brightly colored on separate pieces of paper.  This thank you project probably took my niece and her friends a good half-hour to do.  And I haven’t received anything so beautiful in a long time.

Thank you notes seem to have gone out of vogue along with regular letters by post.  Yet, only yesterday, I read a wonderful article by a Los Angeles therapist about the importance of writing a heartfelt note to someone every now and then.  She put together “mood boosting interventions” for a health, fitness and beauty expo last spring, to help people write a thank you note to someone, and they sold like hot cakes.

“Really go all out in expressing your gratitude. Doing this might boost your mood because research has shown that focusing on gratitude, even for a very brief time, can increase feelings of happiness,” said Nadja Geipert in her Psychology Today article.

So you want to be happy? Who are you grateful to today?  What would you like to say thanks for? Jot them a note.  It doesn’t have to be fancy–it just needs to be there.

The thank you notes I received from my niece and her friends lifted my spirits for the day, and even now I smile as I look on these beautiful gifts.

Thank you DH women!