The tale of green sneakers

I don’t know about you, but I tend to get too wrapped up in what is wrong in my life. I try to practice gratitude on a daily basis, but sometimes it gets away from me. I admit it; I envy people who have good jobs; I envy people who can take nice vacations; I envy people who are happy all the time. The list goes on.

Something very nice happened over the weekend. I was able to take a step back and really appreciate the goodness of people.

If you’ve read my previous post on, A day in Nancy’s life, you will note that my Mom and I go out for coffee at a local bagel shop called, “Bagels Best.” We are good friends with the owners.

One of the owners, Sharon, wears these really cool looking bright green sneakers. My Mom always compliments her on them. Sharon mentioned that she orders several pairs at once. It turns out that Sharon and my Mom are the same shoe size, so Sharon brought a pair in for Mom. How nice was that?

Mom was floored and has been wearing the sneakers every day since then. She was happy to wear them on Monday, St. Patrick’s Day.

I really wanted to show Mom wearing the shoes, but given her aversion to having her picture taken, you’ll have to be content to see the shoes. Mom is the one on the left. Aren’t they cool?

So my lessons learned from this very pleasant experience:

* A small gesture of kindness can make someone’s day.
* People are good and will surprise you.
* Stop being envious of other people; you just don’t know what their lives are really like. Okay this has nothing to do with the green sneakers, but it is reminder to myself.

What unexpected acts of kindness can you do to make someone’s day?