My apologies to those readers who received a confusing ‘new post’ from The Inspired Notebook in your email inbox this morning.
What I learned today is that scheduling draft posts and post notes with a future date – to avoid accidentally hitting ‘Publish’ too soon – is not totally foolproof!!
There’s a good chance that two days before Christmas, in all the busy-ness, nobody noticed anyway.
But it certainly wasn’t what I needed to wake up to this morning!
What was meant to be my very last Christmas shopping expedition last night (which involved driving for an hour there and back to a decent sized shopping centre)… well, let’s just say, it wasn’t!
And so tomorrow morning, Christmas Eve, I’ll be out shopping again.
Today, despite the fact that I officially supposedly finished work on Wednesday afternoon (or at least assured the kids that I would be!), I spent the day working – on all the things that couldn’t wait to be done until hubby’s business reopens in the first week of January.
Oh yeah, and did I mention that I had a bit of a pre-Christmas meltdown? But I hear I’m not the only one who melted down today, which may not be so great for other ‘melters’ but does make me feel at least a little better!
It’s Christmas!!!
Whether you’ve been organized for weeks, or experiencing your own overwhelm and exhaustion (hopefully without the meltdowns!), it’s a time to focus on the best things that life has to offer: family, friends, love…
…and GIVING!
And it’s a great thing to be reminded that giving is not all about who’s getting what for Christmas and whether your present list is all ticked off.
This week, despite a lot of overwhelm, a few tears, and my struggles to overcome the craziness and immerse myself in the Christmas spirit, I’ve also had great reason to smile.
Why?
I’ve been inspired this week by the amazing generosity of bloggers.
A few weeks back I read a over at Stuff With Thing, about Marita’s daughter Annie sending a Christmas Care Package to an Australian soldier.
I was struck at the time by what a generous heart both Annie and her Mum have.
With such an open and generous spirit, it must have been even more difficult for Annie to understand why the Helping Children With Autism funding would cover the purchase of an iPad for her sister Heidi but not for Annie herself. (Both girls were diagnosed with autism but Annie’s diagnosis came too late to enable her to receive this funding.)
Yesterday morning, in response to this post from Marita on her blog, and this video from Annie
Kim from Frog Ponds Rock posted An iPod for Annie.
Within just a few short hours – by the time I even saw the post – Kim had managed to raise $725 in donations, from generous readers, bloggers and twitter followers, towards Annie’s new iPad. At the same time, Nathalie from Easy Peasy Kids was calling Apple to organize a discount for the iPad purchase.
Check out Marita’s latest post to see a great pic of Annie receiving her iPad from the staff at the Apple store. Even the smiles on their faces will make you smile.
Hopefully we’ll see many more videos created by Annie with a message that can make a great big difference and touch many people’s hearts!
Speaking of videos…
I’ve been inspired too by this awesome video clip taken from Michael Buble’s Birmingham 2010 concert:
Thanks so much to Trevor Young, PR Warrior, for sharing the clip in this post and tweeting about it – otherwise I may never have seen it either.
And while it’s actually been a couple of weeks since I first saw this on PR Warrior’s blog, I had a great time sharing it on Facebook yesterday – and might have watched it more than a couple of times in the past twenty-four hours.
(Just a warning for those of you with young kids, there are a couple of passionate expletives in this clip. One of which it took some time for me to notice – and a whole lot less time, apparently, for my kids to notice!!)
I’ll leave you to enjoy Michael Buble’s generosity and passion, while I get some sleep. Have to wake up bright and early for tomorrow’s last-minute Christmas shopping!
Wishing you a wonderful, peaceful Christmas, spent doing the things you love with the people you love!
Take care,
Brigid
Photo Credit: flickr user Roger Carr