Touching Your Heart

 Downy Touch of Comfort-Quilts for Kids

Hey everyone…this is a little late for our usual monthly challenge, but Robin found this and it is perfect for a May Challenge!!  This is an amazing cause and perfect for all of you amazing quilters out there!! I wish I had the talents that you do, but I don’t…but I am cheering you all on!!  Should you choose to participate, when your quilt is completed, please feel free to send us a picture of it and we will post it for you, or feel free to post it yourself on our TouchingYourHeart.net Facebook page.  Please spread the word on this and share this link with anyone you can think of who might be interested!!

Downy Touch of Comfort Quilts for Kids

Hey everyone….here is another great way you can help make a difference….and this time….you can make a difference in the lives of some precious children throughout North Dakota!!  Check it out!!

Pajama Drive for Project Nightlight

I just LOVE this idea and it touches my heart!!  Thanks to everyone who helped me find the details to help promote this amazing cause!  Let’s do this!!!

UPDATE APRIL 17, 2012:  Per the www.dakotacommunitybank.com website, 738 pajamas were donated in total!!! WOW!!!!

Dictionary definition of Unsung Hero: a person who makes a substantive yet unrecognized contribution; a person whose bravery is unknown or unacknowledged.

Touching Your Heart.net’s definition of Unsung Hero: Angel behind the scenes.

Our challenge to you for February:  To take time to recognize and thank the “angels behind the scenes” in your lives.

We all have them in our lives…and too often they go unnoticed or are overlooked.  It’s not intentional on our part by any means but sometimes we just need a reminder to take a little time to look a little deeper into a situation or event and look to see who some of the angels behind the scenes are…..because quite often these angels are trying very hard to stay under the radar so it takes a little more searching to find them and see what they really do.  Sometimes we just get so used to the same people doing the same things for our communities and I think we come to just expect it.  But what we don’t realize is that even though these people are just doing their jobs or are just known to do angelic things, they are putting in many hours of work behind the scenes because they want to…not because they were asked.  We don’t see the emotions that are played out, we don’t see their tears that are shed during the sad times and we don’t get to see the smiles during the happy times.  And again, of course they don’t want us to know.

So, we are challenging each of you to pay a little closer attention in your daily lives to find the “angels behind the scenes” in your lives.  Maybe it’s the wonderful flower shop ladies in your communities, your funeral director and his assistants, your local firemen and ambulance crews, the police department, the city and county crews, the retail stores in town who donate to causes.  Maybe it’s a teacher in your life, the staff at the school, the janitors or cooks.  Maybe it’s that sports supporter who shows up at each and every game.  The list is endless!

 Send them an email, send them a funny card, whatever you can come up with. Trust me…you will touch their heart more than you will ever know.  And if you don’t want them to know it’s from you…do it anonymously.  Either way, you will be making a difference…one person at a time…one day at a time.

~jodi and robin

Hey everyone….here is a fun way you can help make a difference.  My dear sis {in law} and my hubby’s sister, Kortney, went to high school with Chrissy in Kalama, WA and they were good friends. Kortney asked if we would help spread the word via our website and of course we jumped on it!!

Chrissy is a busy wife and a mom to a precious little boy they adopted with special needs.  She is trying to record a Christian album, but needs to raise money to make it happen.

The link is: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chrissyshelton/journey-to-joy.  You can donate as little as a dollar, or as much as you want She has a great voice & has a good message.

Please consider helping Chrissy out to reach her goal of $10,000 by March 2, 2012, and please feel free to share this with anyone you can think of who might like to help her out!!

Good luck, Chrissy!!  Kortney and the TouchingYourHeart.net team will be cheering you on!

This is Robin… Just wanted to share that we are going to be doing some very SIMPLE planning to get this event going in Bowman.  Here is the link for the original post… Sherry Arnold Walk/Run.

We have left our Porch Lights on for Sherry and will continue to do that until she is found.

Now there is an event to honor her love of running.  Please follow the original link here and on Facebook to learn more about it.

If you are from the Bowman area and would like to participate or help plan, please let me know by commenting on our blog or via the Facebook page for touchingyourheart.net.

I will be posting more info including start times, meeting places, and anything else we can think of as planning continues.  So, at this point, mark your calendar for February 11th and keep checking back here to find more info.

As I sit here listening to the radio (via the internet) to hear more about the finding of Sherry Arnold’s body in/near Sidney, Montana my heart aches.  All week Jodi and I have been talking about what we could do to reach out and make a small difference somehow but just couldn’t quite make up our minds on what to do (other than pray).

Sherry has been missing since January 7th when she went for a run at 6:30 AM.  Sidney, a small town (5000 people) in Montana has been shaken by her disappearence.  Today, news is being released that her body has been found (Edited:  Body has not been found see below for link to further info regarding the case).  The FBI and local authorities in that area are going to share information in a few minutes regarding her case.

As we all know, Facebook is a great way to spread information.  A Facebook Event has been started and is shared here.  Something very simple to do in order to shine some light in the world and keep our own communities lit at night.  Here is the information from the page and a link.

For the next seven days please turn your porch lights on at 9pm your time until daylight the next day. Let’s celebrate the life of Sherry Arnold and let her know we all care! Please share this and spread the word!

As a way of keeping your communities safer after the week is through… keep your porch lights on each and every night.  Light has a way of turning away danger.

Prayers for the family and community of Sherry Arnold.

Be sure to go to the link for the Facebook page and share the event and this post with your friends all around the United States and around the world.

Latest News

Please pray for the family and bring Sherry home.

…{and TouchingYourHeart’s Pay It Forward Smile Effect}

Hey everyone…HAPPY NEW YEAR!! {I warn you once again, this post is very long, so grab a cup of coffee or a nice cold pop, sit back, relax and read away!! I will bold the highlights for those of you who don’t have that quite long of an attention span. }

As always, the New Year finds many of us making New Year’s Resolutions and ultimately in the end, setting ourselves up for failure.  I try not to make too many resolutions, if any, as I know I tend to set my goals way too high.  However, this year I am taking a different approach and trying ones that I should be able to attain and maintain throughout the year.  And, my first one and most precious one to me is one I am going to share with all of you and challenge you all to join me!!

My first New Year’s Resolution is: focus more on the little things in life that make me smile…and attempt to do more of those things…and then pay forward the “smile effect” to my friends and family.

Now, I know that we here at TouchingYourHeart.net focus A LOT on enjoying the little things in life…but that is something we truly believe in.  If you remember, that is how this blog/website all started.  Some of you may remember that this all started years ago with myself just sending out little fun emails to my family and friends.  My goal was to bring a smile to the faces of those I love.  And it worked!!! My email list grew and grew…I reached out for help from Robin, Steph and Diane A and many others of you to help me keep it up…and we eventually took the HUGE LEAP OF FAITH and together…Robin and I hit that PUBLISH BUTTON for the very first time for our TouchingYourHeart.net website!! I will never forget that day! We were so nervous and had no idea what to expect.  We were looking forward to being able to reach out to all you more quickly, more efficiently and to be able to reach out to so many more people.  I will be the first to admit that I am slightly disappointed that over the years our numbers haven’t really grown and we have tried different ways of making it happen to grow the website.  We converted the website over to more of a blog type and find that that seems to work a bit better and have added a Facebook page for interacting.  Again, I find myself disappointed that the Facebook page didn’t draw in the numbers that I was hoping for….BUT…I have realized a few different things:  First, we still have the same followers who were with us from the beginning!!! That is awesome.  We have not lost a single one of you…you are still with us!!!! We are so blessed.  Thank you!!!  Secondly, I have realized it doesn’t matter the QUANTITY of followers we have…what matters is the ones we DO HAVE.  We are reaching out to all of you as often as we can trying to make a difference…one person at a time…one day at a time.  And hopefully continuing to bring a smile to the faces of all of you!  And additionally, we have had an amazing response to many of the different challenges we bring your way.  The TouchingYourHeart.net team is amazing.  You are the best prayer warriors, color wearers/displayers, support givers, etc that I have ever come across.  We call on you and you are all there…and you spread the word for us…and in the end the numbers for the challenges are amazing…the number of prayers that you send out for people is amazing!!!!! Thank you for that!! I truly believe that these challenges are HUGE to those we are doing the challenge for and also for their friends and families.  Yes, it is a big commitment to these challenges, more goes on behind the scenes than one may realize and at times they can become exhausting, but all it takes is to see the support out there and Robin and I are re-energized knowing we are MAKING A DIFFERENCE!

Okay, so…back to this challenge….I came across this “Things That Made Me Smile Today” idea from an article I read and unfortunately I cannot find it.  But to sum it up…this gal was missing her mom who had passed away and was wishing she knew what little things had made her mom smile.  So, she decided to start her own “Things That Made Me Smile Today” Journal so that her children would be able to read through it one day and so that she in turn on days she was finding it hard to smile could go through her journal to remind herself of what had made her smile in the past.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE this idea, so much in fact that I gave a few of these journals as Christmas gifts.  {I would have loved to have given one to everyone I know but no way I could afford all those journals!! LOL}  So, this is my way of sharing it with all of you…by doing this challenge on the blog.

All you need to do is find yourself a simple little notebook or cute little journal…make it your “Things That Made Me Smile Today” Journal and take note throughout the day of what little things brought a smile to your face.  Take time to embrace that moment and enter it in your journal.  You don’t have to write a book about it..just jot down the event that made you smile!

Now this is where “TouchingYourHeart’s Pay it Forward Smile Effect” comes into play.  If you are having a day where you just find yourself not able to find something to smile about…CREATE ONE!!  Look around you…watch the people in your life or who you come across on the street or while out shopping or doing errands.  Do they look sad?  Or is there something you can do for them to make them smile?  Maybe you know they are a huge pop addict…surprise them with a pop at their workplace or home.  Maybe you can just send someone a card to brighten their day, or maybe you can just give a friend a hug.  Take time to people watch….pay attention and I bet you can find something to do that would make them smile.  Maybe someone needs help shoveling their sidewalk, maybe someone needs some errands run but can’t get out to do them, maybe someone needs a babysitter for even just an hour to get out and have some “me time.”  There are SO many things we can do.  You can even do it the secret way….maybe you can shovel for someone while they are not home and they will be surprised when they get home…maybe you can drop off a bouquet of flowers to someone who’s day needs brightening and not leave a card saying who they are from..leave it a surprise!  Use your imagination.  Have fun with it.  And I bet that by the time your idea starts coming together, you will start to smile!  Just imagine the smile that you will create for the person you are doing the good deed for!

Feel free to share this post with anyone you think might like to join the challenge!  I really think you will be surprised at what things actually bring a smile to your face…and the difference you can make by making someone else smile!!  Feel free to leave comments here on the blog or on our TouchingYourHeart.net Facebook page to let us know how the challenge is working for you!  You might help give someone else an idea that they can use!!  Or, if you want to remain anonymous, please email them to me at mjativey@ndsupernet.com  and I will post them for you.  Feel free to also email me personally if you just want to share what you did but don’t want it posted.

Oh, and by the way…my other two resolutions for this year are:

1.  To follow www.flylady.net as much as I can.  I LOVE THIS SITE. Robin introduced me to it years ago.  It is an awesome house/organization site that gives you missions and tasks for the day!  It’s a bit overwhelming at first, so start slowly and follow their babysteps!

2.  Focus more on my running, or as I call it…trotting!!  I would love to do at least two 5K’s in 2012!

{By posting these resolutions, I hope to be more accountable!!}

Good luck everyone… I hope to hear from you and am so hoping you will join our challenge!!

~Just me…and that’s enough~jodi