Step Up!

I had a crazy night yesterday. I did a sleep over with grandpa. He decided after dinner to go for a walk outside his complex that wasn’t a great idea. He is ok and I could tell from last night that something had made him upset and he just wanted to go home with us. I tried to explain to him that right now that wouldn’t happen. So I sacked out on his recliner and watched a few episodes of Anne’s latest fixation, Dowton Abbey.

After waking around 5ish and getting ready I left my dad’s room and got coffee from Starbucks for my Anne before she left for work. I took a quick shower and decided it was best to do my work early today instead of taking a snooze with the dogs. I had a bunch of little errands to accomplish. One was dropping off our ballots. I was shocked to pull up into a full parking lot at a local elementary school only to discover that the voting room was empty. I was the only one voting along with about 7 helpers who were waiting.

I know it is easy to find excuses to not do what seems to be normal things like vote, help a friend, give to a worthy cause or take your kid out on a date or go for a walk with your dog. Last night I knew that I couldn’t go out with Anne or take my dogs for a walk because grandpa needed me. It was enjoyable being there with him and watching him get ready for bed and then eventually go into snooze land. I just don’t understand the mindset of most who assume that someone else is always there to pick up the slack that they choose to drop.

We had a great time on Saturday taking a large group to Flagstaff and have an adventure both with driving; stopping at different places and eventually ending up in the snow, ice and mud. It was so great to watch everyone jump out of the vehicles and literally dive into the snow and almost instantly get wet or too cold to know what to do. We literally took over this snowdrift just off the main drag. Our 10-car caravan dwarfed the single car parked in the melting snow and ice. We enjoyed the snow and cold for three hours before everyone was frozen and thinking it was time to get home.

It would have been so easy to kind of leave the little bits of our evidence of being there blow into the trees and open area. Yet, all of the adults and a few of the students decided to pick up the trash and leave almost no footprint of our being there. I can’t imagine how often someone else picked up my trash or put away my toys, put gas in the car that I left empty or go out of their way to greet a neighbor.

I was little miffed because a few of the teens had been using the Wi-Fi device while we were up in the snow. I at first thought that the device had vanished and that the Internet was pretty much over for tutoring now. I thoroughly looked through the truck and couldn’t find it anywhere. I asked the guilty parties who had used it and everyone passed the buck, i.e. I gave it to someone else. I called up each of the culprits only to discover that no one had stepped up to make sure the device didn’t get lost. I thought I had better do a more thorough job of looking in the truck only to discover that it had fallen into a space between the seat and the console. So it’s back and running. My real hope is that all of us can step up because someone else has stepped up for us. Life is too short to not be a change agent and be too focused on who made the mess or why should I care about something that doesn’t effect my life? Choose to make a difference!