Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

Today is Valentine’s Day. Yesterday I had to stop at the store and I saw a guy coming out as I went in with a big box of chocolates under his arm. Then I saw another perusing the red nighties and flowers looking for something his loved one might like. Big pink and red hearts are everywhere and usually filled with chocolate. That’s my kind of heart. Well, not really. My blog and website are called Helping Hearts. If you look under the title on my website, there’s a passage from the bible. Proverb 4:23. “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” It’s packed in a wisdom-giving part of the bible just before admonitions to Keep your mouth free of perversity;       keep corrupt talk far from your lips. 25  Let your eyes look straight ahead;      fix your gaze directly before you. 26  Give careful thought to the [ c ] paths for your feet      and be steadfast...

  Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net   Okay, I’m overwhelmed. My new Christian novel Behind the Stage is coming out in two weeks. I’m getting my website ready, researching credit card machines you can use on your smartphone, setting up book signings and all this is on top of what I am usually doing (work, school, Relay for Life steering committee and, oh yeah, taking care of my family).  Not only that, but next Friday is the celebration of several great events, not just Valentine’s Day. It’s National Donor Day , V-Day , and International Book Giving Day . It’s also part of Random Acts of Kindness week and February 15 is National Make a Blanket Day . Whew! Now I’ve got that all said, I can’t write about all of those things in one week, so a few will have to wait until later.  It’s funny. I’ve had this feeling of being overwhelmed many times and also the feeling of having no control over things. But once I’ve decided that I can’t do it ...

I wanted to take a moment to report on the Great Kindness Challenge, hoping that some of you out there took the challenge and came up with something kind to do last Saturday. If so, please share your experience in the comments below.    I have to say, when you come into a room full of ladies with a bunch of flowers in your hands, people tend to perk up a little. You can almost hear them thinking, “Who is getting those? Could it be me?” A dozen strangers at my church got an individually wrapped pink rose put at their seats. I left them randomly while most of the ladies were out of the room, because once I got there, I realized I’d have to choose 12 ladies out of dozens, an impossible task. Who’s to say one is more worthy than another? Not me, that’s for sure. Anyway, it was nice to see that my first experiment went so well. Everyone was thrilled to get their flowers. A couple people did identify me as the culprit giving them out and asked why, so I told them about ...

Next Saturday is the day! The Great Kindness Challenge ! I am so excited because I already have an idea for something to do. You see, the church I have been attending is having a ladies’ brunch that day which I have been looking forward to because I am new at the church. I’m eager to meet some other ladies and find out what this church does for missions work. Since it’s the Great Kindness Challenge, I think I will stop beforehand and get a dozen roses and individually wrap them and give them out to random ladies at the brunch. What will you do for the Great Kindness Challenge? If you need some ideas, the Kids for Peace , who started the challenge, have a few ideas (25 to be specific) on their website . They range from things like smiling at people and making thank you cards, to cleaning up and planting a tree. Of course we want to do kind acts every day, but this is a day to help us remember that and give us a few hints on what kinds of things we can do. I had gotten in th...

Happy Valentine’s Day and Random Acts of Kindness Week! It’s time for an Angels update. My Relay for Life team Angels for a Cure did so great on our bake sales. We made nearly $900! People were outbidding each other for cakes and we had enough cookies to feed half of Pensacola. The extras went to the Waterfront Rescue Mission Sunday night meal and the minister there was so grateful to get them. We just had our Giveback days at Ruby Tuesday, too, on Tuesday and Wednesday, but I won’t know how we did on that for a couple weeks. It’s the first time we’ve ever done that, so I’m interested to know how it went. We passed out about 250 flyers and invited people through Facebook. Then our team had our meeting at Ruby Tuesday and had dinner there. We get 20 percent of sales back when people show the flyer we gave out. Our next fundraiser, a Chili Cookoff, is going so well except for one thing—no ticket sales. I’ve gotten donations of cookies and drinks from Publix. We’ve got eight chili ...

Next week is a pivotal week. As we celebrate love on St. Valentine’s Day, we realize that love is to be shared. It’s something you can hold onto only if you give it away.   Last week I wrote about how I enjoy books and sharing them with others, giving you lots of options about how to do so or support nonprofits that do. I guess I was subconsciously gearing up for International Book Giving Day on Valentine’s Day. V-Day is also when we celebrate One Billion Rising to dance against violence done to women worldwide. I wrote about that in January so people could decide how and with whom they were going to dance in support of it. But next week is also one of my favorite weeks of the year because it’s Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) Week. Back in January, I warned you that it was coming with my story of how Courtney Fell led a bunch of kids to do random acts of kindness. She had some great ideas for acts of kindness. Now it’s time for even more. The Random Acts of Ki...

I cried so much doing the research for this week’s blog. I guess that’s nothing new. My husband often sees me with tears running down my face as I work on my blog. It’s usually a mixture of sadness and happiness at what happens in this world that causes it.   Have you heard about the 26 acts of kindness that NBC News Host Ann Curry suggested people do in honor of each person who died at Sandy Hook Elementary School? She started out just suggesting people do 20 acts for the kids, but everyone wanted to do something for each person who died.   If you want to see some examples of what people are doing and her explanation of how it all happened, visit the NBC News page about it . I think it’s such a fabulous idea that I had to mention it.   I also found out about a local mother who started her own random acts of kindness initiative.   Were your kids bored over the Christmas holiday when they were out of school?   Courtney Fell’s two boys were, too...