Post Election Family Protest

Like many of you, I have been sad, frustrated, and angry this week.  Mr. Cyrus and I had long ago determined we were going to be unhappy with either of the two main party candidates, so it wasn't the election results per se, but rather, I was depressed by the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad behavior of so many people.  Also like many of you, I have some opinions and rants I'd like to share with the Internet.

However.



Instead, I staged a protest.

Scary protesters in action

Today is my birthday, which means, as you know, that one's family has to do whatever one wishes and not complain about it for once in their freaking life.  (Please?)  Accordingly I waited patiently all week until my sweet husband asked, "What would you like to do for your birthday?"

"I have some thoughts," I replied nonchalantly, and then whipped out a page of notes.

I wanted to celebrate my birthday by being with my family and by making people happy.  I wanted to start a bunch of little kindness trails that could spread outward.  I wanted to kick back against all the hurt and mayhem in this country right now.

And so our family planned a day of random acts of kindness.  Mr. Cyrus suggested that our chances at media attention would be greater if we wore Trump signs, but I vetoed that.

Here's what we did:

*spent an hour lurking around a shopping center parking lot, popping around cars right as people closed their trunks, and asking if we could return their carts.  Many startled smiles and genuine thanks.  The Costco and Target cart-getter guys are also now our new best friends.

*obtained small smooth stones to create rocks for the Love Rocks project.  We will finish these up over the weekend and deliver them around our town as we see fit.

*went around our neighborhood offering to rake leaves.  This was probably my favorite because we immediately collected two neighbor friends to help, and another family helped for a while too.  Two houses offered their yard waste bins for our efforts.  When Mr. Cyrus and I suggested we wrap it up, the kids all moaned and wanted to do more.  So we did.

*went to Starbucks and left money for the next few people in line behind us.

It was wonderful.

I know these are small things.  We didn't get any media attention, but people did see and notice what we were doing.  I didn't host a round table with Trump and Clinton supporters and get them to talk about their perspectives and now everyone vows they will vote for Mike Rowe next time around.  We even left our "Jesus Loves You" stickers at home.  Nevertheless, people's lives were better today because of my family's purposeful action.  And no property was damaged, looted, or otherwise tampered with.  This is what I can do right now, and I'm doing it.

So. . .what can you do? Go do it.