January 11, 2014:
Beautiful spring-like day - amazing weather. Went downtown with Will to get a fresh veggie juice and walked down to the lake to enjoy to sun and scenery. Noticed a lot of trash by the lake and bus stop. Spent about 20 minutes picking up trash in the area. Once you start looking for trash - you see more and more! We did as much as possible, and the area looked much better afterwards!
Observations:
It wasn't that hard to spend a few minutes doing this, and it looked so much better afterwards.
If everyone would spend just a few minutes picking up the trash around them, can you imagine the impact?!
I could tell that a few people here and there were noticing us and were curious about what we were doing....got a couple of quizzical looks.
We told a guy from the juice place what we were doing, I think he was thinking...ok, that's strange...
Overall, I felt really good about making the place a little better looking and only taking a few minutes to do so.
If this is going to be a habit, I do need to put some hand sanitizer in the car!
On the way home, we noticed a car that was parked on Bull Creek with their parking lights on. I was talking to Will about how that person was going to have a dead battery and their day wouldn't be so great. Then we were talking about how random acts should put you out of your comfort zone, and we decided to turn around and go up to the house and tell them about the lights. I went up to the door and knocked - and I could tell the guy was hesitant to answer (the door had a full window in it). He opened it and I told him that we were driving by and noticed that the car lights were on and we decided to stop and tell him.
Observations:
He was visibly surprised as to why I was at his door - I'm sure he thought I wanted to sell him something or was wanting a petition signed, etc.
He was very thankful - the car belonged to a relative from out of town and he said he would tell them.
I think he was a little dumbfounded - he totally wasn't expecting someone to do what I did. Maybe he'll share the story with others and someone else will be inspired to do something similar??
Overall, I had a great experience doing these little things - they made me feel good, and they also got me out of my comfort zone a bit! On to the next challenge!