Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is Challenge

I have mentioned before that most of the time on my morning runs the deepest thought I get is what outfit I am going to wear and whether or not I can get away with not shaving my legs.  However, there are some days where my mind runs a little deeper.

Today was one of those days...don't say I didn't warn you.

I have been really trying to be thankful.  Thankful of everything, even things that give me pain.  Using that pain as a way to work on myself and make me better at handling that pain.  For instance, I am thankful for the traffic and the crappy drivers because it gives me a chance to work on my lack of calmness when I drive.  When my kids drive me crazy or my job gets stressful I am just thankful that I have great smart kids who think more than they should and that I even have a job to be stressed about.  It really does change my attitude which brings good things to me.

Food and exercise is another area of my life where I struggle.  I curse food, I curse getting up to exercise.  When I was running this morning cursing the very ground I was pounding,  I realized that there are people out there that don't have enough to eat or can't get up to exercise, and every time I curse those things I am thumbing my nose at my blessings.

Yep...wow...and those thoughts got me to formulate a plan (and made me late because I had no idea what shoes to wear with these really cute shorts)

So I made a plan, really it is what I do best. Here is my plan:

Everyday that I get up to exercise I will donate one dollar to the Special Olympics.  Everyday that I eat without gluttony and choose healthy options and have a healthy attitude towards food I will donate one dollar to my local food pantry.  It is a win win situation.  I will become more thankful for my blessings, I'll be able to help others who aren't as fortunate, and I will become a stronger healthier person...not to mention some tax write offs at the end.

I am challenging you to do the same.  You could tweak it a little.  You could donate to a disabled persons organization, or to a group that helps people who have lost limbs.  You could donate to Compassion or Heifer Project to help those who go without food daily.  You could lower, or raise the amount donated.  You could hook it to keeping within your Weight Watcher Points, or some calorie limit.  The possibilities are endless.

I am tired of whining about food and exercise and really do want to be thankful for my blessings.

If I were a "real" blogger I would create a cute button for this challenge, but really have not a clue how to do that.   If I were a "real" blogger I would probably have more than 6.5 people who read this.  So I realize that this challenge may stay very small, but even small we can help a lot of people and ourselves at the same time.  But feel free to spread the word if you know of other people who might be interested in doing something about their problems with health and food and help others at the same time.  (Or someone who knows how to make a button)  If you want to join me leave me a comment and let me know how you are going to do it.  At the end of the month I'll do a post that lets you know how it is going and I can report on how much we have raised and what charities are benefiting from our thankful mindset.  Even if no one joins me I'll still let you know how I did.

My new focus on being thankful has really helped me with changing many aspects of my life.  I have so many blessings and feel the overwhelming need to help others and change my attitude.

I hope you might join me.

More Later

- A Ro