All Smiles, originally uploaded by optikal..

The newest nice assigment is to smile more. I am a fairly smiley person already so this will be easy and fun. I generally try to smile at everyone all the time. But I will pay attention and try to smile more. I will also encourage others to smile as well.

And for another nice update,

I finished the living eulogy. I wrote it for my dear friend E. and gave it to her when I was finished. She loved it.

I think I will write more for others but I will take a different, slightly more positive direction. I think I will write like I am nominating [said person] as Man or Woman of the Decade. And then talk about why… that might be a more positive version of this ‘nice’ assignment. Eulogies seem creepy. And in some cultures it is bad luck to write a eulogy or obituary for someone who is not dead. It is like putting a curse on them. Wouldn’t want to do that! Particularly not with people I care about… well, no one really but you know what I mean!

Better be safe than sorry!

This leaves only new and ongoing nice challenges. I continue to make nice drops. The other day when we were getting coffee, we paid for the person behind us and left a nice note. It is fun!! This Tuesday I’ll be making a handmade valentine! How much fun will that be?

Want to join me in my quest to be nicer?
(more…)

A art project visual of my I LOVE LIST =)

As part of my journey to new levels of nice, I have made my first I love list… listing many things I love. I will probably make more as time goes on, change them, add to them… in no particular order, here are some of the things I love…

• Rain
• nonsense
• books
• reading
• cotton
• nice people
• listeners
• umbrellas
• recycling
• love bottles
• starbucks iced tea
• picture frames
• bandaids
• art
• inspirational people, stories, things
• My Nook
• handmade things and clothes
• flowy dresses
• sticky notes
• pens
• rainboots
• traveling
• bees
• education
• ice cream
• family
• friends
• laughing
• global concepts, international relations
• Anthropology
• birdnoculars
• birds
• crows
• popsicles
• leaves
• Autumn
• Washington State
• apples
• writing
• love
• badminton
• the holidays (most all of them)
• little red wagons
• puffins
• photographs (both taking them and seeing them)
• stars, astronomy
• music
• YOU

I sent off my first postcard to a family or friend today… in my nice journey. =) I am excited to hear from the person I sent it to. It has been too long!

I happened upon a most wonderful site the other day, Operation NICE. Allow the lovely lady who started it tell you in her own words (from the website) what it is about,

Don’t you love it when people go out of their way to be nice? Like when someone waits to hold the door for you. Or when a stranger waves you into a line a traffic. Or even when a coworker shoots you a friendly smile along with a “have a nice day.” If everyone was a little bit nicer to the folks they encountered each day, perhaps the world would be a more pleasant place. Operation NICE was initiated to remind you that a little NICE goes a long way.

And so a movement was born…a journey to be nice and proactively spread the niceness. I am jumping in head first! I am already a fairly nice person. I compliment good service. I write thank you notes. I try to be thoughtful mostly. However, I am ready to begin a journey into new depths of niceness.

Most every week for the past few years the nice lady who runs Operation Nice has given out nice assignments for others to complete. Having just found the site I feel a little jealous I have missed out on all these nice opportunities to be super-duper nice and make another person’s day a little bit better. And so! I have decided I will do some of the past assignments as well as trying to do the new ones that she conjures up! It will be fun, fun indeed. These are the past nice assignments I have decided upon:

• Mail a card to a random stranger (picked from the telephone book). I will do this once a month, every 3rd Thursday a month, I already sent the first one yesterday to a lady in Illinois! The whitepages.com insists you put in a last name so I chose a random word close to my heart, ‘book’. =) Fun!  (Ongoing)
• Hand make valentines and give them to those you care about. I had a head start on this one as I did this for Valentine’s Day. But why stop on that day? I will handmake one valentine every month to send to someone I care about–on the 2nd Tuesday of every month. (Ongoing)
• I love list for each month, write a list or do a doodle composition of what you love about the current month… or as I will do it the upcoming month. I will post my What I love about this month picture or list on the 1st of every month. (Ongoing)
• Write a living eulogy — I will give this some thought and get back to you soon… I might even post it. If not, I will post about it. (Finished on August 6th)
• Send a postcard to family and/or friends on a regular basis. I will choose some nifty postcards and send one a week to a different person until I recycle through everyone and then begin again. (Ongoing)
• Make a I Love list, a positive way of articulating goals or just being grateful. I will make one soon… and periodically make new ones… this one will be fun! (Finished on July 30th)
• Nice bombs, on the Operation Nice website she provides cards you can print out that say Nice Note and a space for you to write in your own message. She even attaches little gifts with them! How nice!!! I will write some out and sometimes add little gifts… and leave them places, taking photos of the places I leave them to share with everyone. (Ongoing)

Oh! I am excited to get all crazy random nice! How fun! I will keep you up to date on my journey to the inner depths of niceness. In the meantime why not start your own little nice things to do and tell me about it and tell Melissa from Operation Nice about it too! And a big fat thank you to you Melissa for inspiring me to be even nicer.

Updated last (August 25th).