I did a thing

So I did a thing.

In my community, some yard signs went up in the yards of local graduates congratulating them. There were two in my neighborhood. I noticed it yesterday when I picked up 2 hamburgers at McDonald's on my lunch break.

This morning, I needed to get produce so I forced myself out of bed and promised myself it'd be a quick run for mango, 1 bagged salad, 1 cucumber,  1 bag of baby carrots and maybe a pint of strawberries. Maybe. I wonder if I can get there and back in 30 minutes, I thought to myself.

It took 2 hours. Don't ask me how. I think I went to Walmart last Friday, and I remember thinking don't come to Walmart on Friday mornings because it's pretty busy.

Part of why I was motivated to get out of bed was because yesterday on my hamburger run, I had the great idea to get balloons for the grads. I mean can you imagine graduating from high school (or college or grad school or Harvard Medical school), and not being able to celebrate or walk the stage?

Mind you, I missed a couple of my own post-secondary graduations, but I feel like high school graduation was still the best one. It's the culmination of TWELVE years of work, while the others are 3 or 4. And sometimes, you've known these people your whole life. Say what you may, but high school graduation was special for me. It marks time. It's the end of an era. The other graduations that came after for me were kind of blurry in terms of delineating one life stage from the next.

One of the things my high school graduation held for me that the others didn't was hope. I just knew my life was only going to get better!

So back to the present. In my 2 hour foray in my house dress and hair a mess... I purchased 2 helium graduation balloons ($2) + 4 cards ($2, I made a mistake with the cards and had to get 2 extra) + 2 Walmart Gift cards ($20).

I couldn't remember where the 2nd house was so I slowly circled our little block. I nervously delivered my goods inside the jamb of the screen door of House 1, a dog barked but luckily no one came to the door.

House #2 is across the grassy patch from mine, so I walked it over after parking. They had a doorbell cam instead of a doorbell, so I wedged my little parcel in between the door and the doorjamb there too. I prayed the balloon wouldn't fly away because I just wrapped the string around the card before tucking it in and walking away. My colleague assures me that usually doorbell cams will alert the owner with a video if they sense movement.

So that's my good deed for the day! The issue wasn't the money for me as many of us are flush in free money these days; it's just interacting with strangers. I'm happy to do nice things anonymously from the comfort of my own home; so for this I had to mentally tell myself to pretend I was a delivery person to convince myself something bad wasn't going to happen.  I've been wanting to volunteer with all this free time I have, but haven't found a good way to do so. This has helped ease some of that. 

Happy Friday!