Mother Teresa

“Feed Just One” Word Art Freebies

September 5, 2012 By Deb Chitwood 11 Comments

I’m happy to be participating in Moms Fighting Hunger. In honor of Go Orange for No Kid Hungry, here’s some word art based on a quote by Mother Teresa: “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”

To download word art (without watermark), click here, then right click on the image and choose “Save Picture As . . .”

Stock Image by Olga Semicheva.

Here’s another version:

To download word art png file (without watermark), click here, then right click on the image and choose “Save Picture As . . .”

Stock Image by Yael Weiss

I have lots of word-art inspiration at the Raising Figure Skaters Facebook page and on Pinterest!

Filed Under: Freebies, Making a Difference, Word-Art Quotation Freebies Tagged With: digital scrapbooking freebie, feed just one, Go Orange, If you can't feed a hundred people, make a difference, Mother Teresa, Mother Teresa quote, No Kids Hungry, word art, word-art freebie

“Every Time You Smile” Word-Art Freebie

October 27, 2010 By Deb Chitwood 6 Comments

Here’s some more word art from a Mother Teresa quote related to this Friday’s blog post.

To download word art, click here, then right click on the image and choose “Save Picture As . . .”

Filed Under: Freebies, Word-Art Quotation Freebies Tagged With: digital scrapbooking freebie, Mother Teresa, quotation, quote, word art, word-art freebie

Make a Difference from Home

October 22, 2010 By Deb Chitwood 12 Comments

It’s still Character Counts! Week. Saturday’s suggested character idea for adults is one that is perfect for those of us who work out of our homes – and for those of us with busy schedules who still want to make a difference.

Here’s the character idea from Character Counts!:

Help From Home

Finding time in a busy week to volunteer can be tough, but what if you could do it from the comfort of your own home? Help From Home is a site that lets you do just that. Visit them to learn how you can help without even changing out of your PJs. http://www.helpfromhome.org/

Help From Home

Help From Home was founded by Mike Bright from Cardiff, UK. The site divides its ideas of how you can make a difference from home into “Do Good” Volunteer Actions, “Green” Volunteer Actions, and Advocacy Volunteer Actions. There’s even a drop down menu with volunteer actions in each category requiring 1, 5, or 10 minutes.

It Starts With Us

Two related organizations that I’m actively participating in are It Starts With Us and Let’s Drop a Love Bomb. It Starts With Us was founded by Nate St. Pierre, a web designer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Nate has an inspiring blog along with forums to help build a global community of people who want to make a difference. It Starts With Us has a mission each week that requires only 15 minutes. For example, the week’s mission might be to write a letter to a terminally ill child. Here are links to ways to help change the world through It Starts With Us.

Here’s this week’s mission:

This week, invite someone to be a part of something with you.

It’s a fact of life – we all want to feel included. Even if we don’t accept the offer, it’s still nice to know that the person thought enough of us to ask. So this week reach out to someone and invite them to a movie, a play, church, your house, a sporting event, game night, etc. If that’s too much, maybe just a walk or something, you know? Anything to give you guys that personal time to connect over a shared activity.

Let’s Drop a Love Bomb

It Starts With Us is the parent organization of Let’s Drop a Love Bomb. Let’s Drop a Love Bomb is run by Lauren Lankford, a blogger and artist from Columbus, Ohio. Let’s Drop a Love Bomb requires even less time for its weekly missions – only 5 minutes each week. It’s goal is to drop hundreds of love bombs (encouraging blog comments) on bloggers who need it the most. It simply requires that you read a blog post and leave a comment. The blog post is specially chosen to be someone who needs extra love and encouragement. Last week’s mission was to send love and encouragement to a single mother with breast cancer. This week week’s mission is to send love and encouragement to Ellen on her post “I Give Up.” Here’s an inspiring Love Bomb Update by Lauren.

If we want our children to be people of good character, we need to be examples and inspiration for them. And there really isn’t an excuse not to make a difference when there are ways we all can fit into our lives.

Filed Under: Character, Making a Difference, Parents' Role Tagged With: Character Counts, Character Counts! Week, Help From Home, It Starts With Us, Let's Drop a Love Bomb, make a difference, Mother Teresa

“Small Things with Great Love” Word-Art Freebie

October 20, 2010 By Deb Chitwood 4 Comments

Here’s a Mother Teresa word-art quotation freebie related to this Friday’s blog post.

To download word art, click here, then right click on the image and choose “Save Picture As . . .”

Filed Under: Freebies, Word-Art Quotation Freebies Tagged With: digital scrapbooking freebie, Mother Teresa, quotation, word art, word-art freebie

Project Smile

September 24, 2010 By Deb Chitwood 19 Comments

Alicia at A Beautiful Mess launched Project Smile to brighten our days as we move into fall and winter. On the last day of the month, Alicia will share the little things that make her smile, and she’s encouraging us to focus on the little things that make us smile as well.

I love Project Smile. It reminds me of the Gratitude Community’s Thousand Gifts. It’s about noticing and being grateful for the small things in life.

For me, Project Smile means truly savoring things like time spent with family, Colorado’s 300 days of sunshine each year, Cheyenne Mountain in my neighborhood, the changing of the aspen leaves in the fall, hot tea and hot chocolate.

In Living Life as a Thank You: The Transformative Power of Daily Gratitude, a story from Renee Tilton tells of the lovely daily gratitude practice she learned from her father.

“I noticed that each morning after he went outside to get the newspaper, he stood for a few minutes quietly looking up at the sky and reflecting.” Renee says. “When I asked him what he was thinking, he said that he started his mornings by appreciating God’s beautiful creation and thinking, ‘This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.’”

Renee adds, “As I lock the front door as I’m leaving my house, I pause for a moment to thank God for my home and family, then I look up at the beautiful sky and thank Him for a wonderful day. It puts me in the right frame of mind to start each day.”

Project Smile goes along well with a study published in the British Medical Journal in September 2008. Scientists from Harvard University and UC San Diego discovered a spread of happiness through social networks. In a study of almost 5,000 people over 20 years, they found:

Clusters of happy and unhappy people are visible in the network, and the relationship between people’s happiness extends up to three degrees of separation (for example, to the friends of one’s friends’ friends). People who are surrounded by many happy people and those who are central in the network are more likely to become happy in the future.

Their conclusion was:

People’s happiness depends on the happiness of others with whom they are connected. This provides further justification for seeing happiness, like health, as a collective phenomenon.

Mother Teresa would agree. Whether for inner peace or outer peace, Mother Teresa promoted the spread of happiness and smiles. She said: