It's the Little Things

long curtains and rods, female products, t-shirts to sleep in, boxer shorts, socks, female and male underwear, hair products i.e. gel, dye (jet black) shampoo, lotions, conditioner, body spray, vaseline, cocoa butter, pedicure stuff for you feet, batteries, chips, cheese nips, trident(tropical), cotton balls, popcorn, kettle corn, stuffed animals, tasteful posters for the walls, small rugs, plactic bowls, tampons, pantyliners, softsoap, crest toothpaste, mentadent toothpaste, Gain and Tide detergent, Dryer sheets, twin size sheets for our bed, Motions hair products, Oil sheen for black hair, rasberry lemonade, Tone soap, shaving creme, smores pop tarts, hangers, Lancome lip gloss, dark brown and black eye liner, Lancome cleanser, toner, for oily skin and combination skin, different color nail polish, clear nail polish, Sea salt body scrub, Mary Kay products, Oil of Olay products, Spicy Beef jerky, ankle socks, candy, gum, Scope, Listerine, journals, paper, pens, envelopes, facial scrubs for oily skin, Proactive, color printer paper, speakers, thumbdrives, CD-RW's, Refillable Jet Dri Liguid and Pads, tylex soap scum and mildew remover, Electric skillet, hot plate, To-Go chicken salad and tuna salad, Oxy Clean, Fudge strip cookies, Document protectors, vanilla wafers, power strips, bonnet hair dryer, straight razors, beach towels, wash clothes, club crackers, sqeezable pickle relish and mayannaise, palm pilot, iPod, digital camera, toilet paper, milk duds, honey roasted cashews, calander, mouse pads, mouse, 50ft. extension cords.

On any given day i have many of these things in my little apartment. i never think twice about the ease with which i can purchase them, as well as the comfort they add to our lives.

Reading the requests on Any Soldier has been an amazing experience. I don't always read the posts because I'm going to send a package. I find I also read them for insight into their lives and sacrifices, and my own life here in the US as well.

I find I am much more grateful in general about many gifts I've been given in life and my mood is evidenced in a song from Sound of Music - "I must have done something good..." that I can't get out of my head...

It isn't a song about how deserving a person is for the gifts of others. It's a song about a state of being that is thankful. Like, wow, i totally don't deserve this.

Lately, I do things I never would have 2 weeks ago, like:

1) Putting quarters in a stanger's expired parking meter
2) Offering a nearby vacated seat on BART that is clearly MINE, to somebody else
3) Saying Thank You repeatedly for like ANYTHING

I have also decided that American is anything anyone does who is one. If I'm an American and I'm kind, then it suddenly becomes an American thing.

If I do something and then others do it, too, and it becomes like a movement of sorts, even if it is just 2 other Americans, then that's American, too.

The trick is to DO something.