Happy Monday, everyone! I made it back safe & sound to snowy Indiana. Today’s high is a whopping 12 degrees {yes, that’s Fahrenheit} … I feel like I’ve hopped straight from summer to winter! While I do miss the Florida sunshine, it is wonderful to be back home.

How did last week’s kindness challenge go for you? I thought it was a quick and simple way to hopefully make someone smile. It made me feel great to think about someone lugging their laundry bag and soap down to the cold and cramped apartment basement, and then finding this note and quarters waiting for them on the communal laundry machines:

A couple bucks has never made me feel happier!

As I mentioned in last week’s post, this year of kindness challenge is already making me feel more attuned to acts of kindness done to/for me. Here are some lovely things that happened to me this past week:

• a man helped me lift my heavy carry-on bag into the overhead compartment on my flight to Key West
• I got to meet the incredibly kind and sweet Judy Blume, a literary icon of mine
• a fantastic writer and person — and new friend who I met at the Key West conference — Gigi Amateau surprised my conference roommate {a fellow grad student} and me by generously picking up the check for dinner one night
• everyone at the conference was so warm, friendly and welcoming

My dad also wrote a terrific column for the Ventura County Star newspaper this week featuring three beautiful acts of kindness! You can read it online here.

Now here’s the challenge for this week: write and send a kind note to someone who could use a bit of cheer. This could be a friend, relative, acquaintance, neighbor … anyone who pops into your head who perhaps you haven’t talked to in a while or who is going through a tough time.

Have a marvelous week! I would love to hear your stories of kindness in the comments section below, or feel free to email me at dallaswoodburn <AT> gmail <DOT> com.

Till soon,
Dallas ❤