NICE Testimonial: Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Happy Friday! Do you guys have anything exciting going on this weekend? Tomorrow, I will be trying out indoor rock climbing for the first time. I'm so nervous! I am the opposite of what one would call "athletic," so I fear I will be outclimbed by 6 year olds. This is what I'm going to look like.

Today's testimonial comes from Kari, who shares a story about her sweet neighbor.

I have a 70-something neighbor who is an amazing woman, full of spunk and laughter. She makes apartment life a joy. Contrary to today's world where most neighbors are strangers, my parents have always become good friends with their neighbors. I'm thankful they taught that to me. I baked some cupcakes for a meeting I had at my house this morning, and there were some left over so I thought I would surprise my neighbor with a treat. 

She surprised me back with a full loaf of delicious, locally-baked honey wheat bread - the kind you smell as you drive past a bakery and it makes your mouth water, and four ears of corn-on-the-cob. What a blessing! Little does she know she saved me a trip to the store! It's great to give, but being surprised by the return of blessings is pretty amazing too! Tonight I'm feeling very grateful to be sitting on the other side of the wall from a truly nice person. =)

Kari brings up an interesting point. Do you guys know your neighbors? Are you friendly? Do you just wave or do you make small talk? We're having, ahem, issues with our one neighbor, but we have great neighbors aside from that. We'll go out to dinner or occasionally play video games or roast marshmallows on their chiminea. We got very lucky. I'm curious how many people are in Kari's boat!

Do you have a NICE:Testimonial that you'd like to share? If so, click here to send me an email!

NICE Stuff: Warby Parker

You guys know I'm a big fan of nice company, TOMS, for their generous One for One movement (aka buy one pair and TOMS donates one pair to a person in need). Well, there's another company with a similar philosophy, and a similarly delicious product. Warby Parker.

As a nerd, glasses are my staple accessory. The bigger the better! The weirder the cooler! Or maybe that's just me. Well, Warby Parker makes some sexy frames that are über-affordable. But what really wins me over is how their goal is to help people who don't have access to something as important as a pair of glasses.

From their website:
"Through our Buy a Pair, Give a Pair program, we hope to serve the one billion people on earth who do not have access to glasses. A pair of glasses can often define one's path either as a contributing member of the community or one subject to poverty. Imagine what glasses mean to a farmer who needs to separate seeds to plant or a tailor who needs to thread a needle."

Since I just so happened to get a new eye exam and was in the market for a fresh set of frames, I requested some pairs for home try-on.

They are awesome! I couldn't narrow it down, and since these three pairs of glasses are cheaper than the one pair I bought last year, I decided to just get them all. :) Plus, that means Warby Parker will donate three pairs to people who need them.

So if you're considering some new specs, check Warby Parker out and support a business with NICE values!

NICE Assignment: Road Respect

Boy oh boy, last week was a crazy one! Got a flat tire which couldn't be repaired (and another was on its way out), had an eye doctor try to touch my eyeball which resulted in a freak out, and spent an entire day in the ER with a friend. Hey, first time riding in an ambulance! Phew, it was high stress!

Luckily I was able to wind down at my parents' house this weekend. Know what I did? There was sun shining in through the sliding glass door, so I grabbed a pillow and laid right there on the hard wood floor, soaking up the sunshine. It was amazing! My mom's dog was a little disappointed that I took her spot, so I eventually had to share. :)

I've been thinking about today's assignment for months. I spend most of my days driving through Philadelphia, and let me say, some (*cough cough, most*) of these drivers need a lesson in niceness.

Today's Assignment: Road Respect

I don't have a lot of forced daily human interaction. At work, I sit behind a computer. If I'm in a social situation, it's typically with people I choose to be friends with. But the one place where I am regularly required to interact with others is on the road.

I think I have pretty good road manners. I try to let people in that need to merge. I always use turn signals. I rarely use my horn. But I'll admit that I'm no angel. My dashboard has heard many an expletive escape my mouth. I think we could all try to be a little more respectful of each other on the road, don't you think?

I'd love to hear from you guys! What do you think are ways to be nice on the roads? Oooh, you know what I love?? To get into my neighborhood, I have to make a left at a stop light where there's no left turn arrow. While the light is red, a huge line of cars forms in the opposite direction. So when the light turns green, I have to wait a while, sometimes until it turns red again. Frustrating! But on occasion, the first car in opposing traffic will flash their high beams at me, signaling that I can go in front of them when the light turns green. I think that is SO NICE!

What else? I leave work during rush hour, so pulling out into a line of traffic is huge on my list. I am so grateful when others do it, and I always try to do the same. Do you have any examples of road respect?

RAK Week: Smile at 10 Strangers

Did you have a lovely Valentine's Day? While mine started out pretty awesome, I had a little hiccup along the way. My husband and I didn't plan to do anything special, aside from signing our mortgage refinance papers. The only thing we had on the agenda was to play video games. :) Just something fun and silly for the evening.

Well, on my drive home, I started hearing this weird flapping noise. It sounded bad, so I pulled into a parking lot and saw that my back tire was flat. Dang. My knight in shining armor came and rescued me, thankfully. But it happened 30 minutes before our meeting with the notary! Frantic, for sure. Anyway, with all the delays, and since I couldn't pick up dinner like planned, we had to cut something out, and that was video games. Oh well. There's always next Valentine's Day!

So today's RAK Week Extreme Kindness Challenge task is to smile at ten strangers. This was an assignment of mine back in August. I'm all for smiling at strangers.

Actually, I remember this instance a few months ago. I was walking from my parking garage to work, and I pass a school where parents drop their kids off in the morning. Well, there was this sweet little boy who gave his father a big hug, and I thought it was the most adorable thing ever, so I had a huge smile on my face. The dad noticed and gave me a warm smile in return. It felt so good to exchange a smile with a stranger!

And this morning, because of my flat, I had to take the train into work. We passed a building where a man was hosing down a parking lot, and he paused to smile and wave at the passing train! How awesome is that?! It totally made my day!

Do you notice when strangers make an effort to smile at you? Do you typically smile at others?

NICE Assignment: Random Acts of Kindness Week

Happy Valentine's Day, my lovelies! It's a special day for me. Not just because of all the hearts and doilies and colossal amounts of chocolate. But ten years ago today, my husband and I started dating. (Aren't we cute?) And how will we be celebrating? Um, by closing on our home refinancing. Whoopsie, I forgot today was the 14th when I made the appointment for tonight. Oh well. What's more romantic than saving money, right?

So guys, did you know that aside from Valentine's Day, it is also the start of Random Acts of Kindness Week??? Love and kindness? Sounds like a perfect pair to me.

Today's Assignment: Celebrate Random Acts of Kindness Week

I decided to spread a little kindness in my world, Valentine-style. I picked up a few extra boxes of chocolate to surprise my coworkers. And my coworker bought us all the heart-shaped Dunkin Donuts! Can we say sugar rush? :)

And I also bought these adorable cards. How cute are they??

I wanted to leave a few random treats today, so I put this in my mailbox for our mail carrier. I hope he/she likes chocolate!

I still have two cards and two mini boxes of chocolate left. I'm not sure who to give them to! Do you have any suggestions? Maybe wherever I go pick up lunch, I can give it to the cashier. Or maybe I should leave it on a random person's car? Or put it on my neighbor's doorstep? What do you think?

To keep Random Acts of Kindness week going even after Valentine's Day ends, the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation is posting daily Extreme Kindness Challenges. Today's challenge is to send a note of appreciation to someone you love. Do you guys want to do all of the challenges with me this week? That would ROCK!

So I hope you all have a fabulous Valentine's Day and Random Acts of Kindness Week! I'd love to hear how your celebrating either! Love to you all!

NICE Assignment: Gift a Stranger

Okay, this is freaking brilliant. I love this project so much I want to marry it! I was initially going to post it under the category "NICE Site," but I really want you guys to give it a shot with me, so I'm making it the Assignment for the week.

It's called Gift a Stranger, and quite simply, it's for sending a gift to a stranger. This project was created by the communication agency Happiness Brussels, located in, you guessed it, Brussels, aiming to spread a little happiness around the globe.

This video explains it all.

Gift a Stranger from Happiness Brussels on Vimeo.

And it's so fun because you can see what other people have sent! For example, someone in Belgium sent chocolate to a person in Albuquerque. How cool is that?!

Today's Assignment: Gift a Stranger

So, will you join me? I need to find something good. I have a feeling it'll be addicting, don't you think? Can you imagine getting a random package in the mail from a stranger, just to brighten your day? LOVE IT! If you decide to play along, please let me know! And tell me what you decided to send and to which city. Just because I'm curious. When I figure out what gift I'm sending, I'll let you guys know the what and where. :)

Happy gifting!

NICE Campaign: Coke Cheers

It's no secret that I'm not really much of a "sports" girl. Aside from bowling and air hockey, my skills are non-existent. So I'm also not really that into watching sports. However, I am married to a man who is so obsessed with baseball that he has a David Ortiz Wheaties box hanging in his closet. (And he calls ME dorky?)

But I will admit, thanks to the lure of possibly entertaining commercials and the occasionally scandalous half-time show (and never-ending hot wings), I usually make an effort to check out the Superbowl, which is happening tomorrow.

To put a NICE spin on this typically aggressive sport, Coca-Cola started a campaign called Coke Cheers. They're asking people to "raise a Coke to your favorite team in the big game" and they'll donate $5 to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (up to $250,000). Just click your team, take or upload a photo, and say cheers!

All the little bubbles are the uploaded cheers, so you can check out who's rooting for who, which is pretty neat!

Personally, I have no idea WHO to root for! Who's your pick for the big game?

NICE Stuff: Signs of Affection

You guys know I'm a designer, right? Yup. By day I'm a mild-mannered in-house graphic designer, but by night, well, I'm a mild-mannered blogger of niceness. Hmm, that doesn't sound like it would make a good action movie.

Anyway, my point is, I am passionate about good design and nice stuff, so when the two are combined, it's like an explosion of goodness in my brain. So when my Twitter pal, Zigged, and later my designer friend, Bruce, pointed me to Paul Price's Signs of Affection project, you can imagine my excitement!

So simple, so lovely, so...well...NICE!

In a world where graphic design is used primarily to sell you stuff, and not always in the most aesthetically pleasing way, Paul just wants to promote positivity through a beautiful message.

Check out his blog and Twitter account to keep up on what new prints he's working on.

NICE Campaign: Happy birthday to Aidan!

I wanted to get this post out earlier today, but I was so swamped at work, so it's a little late in the day. But I have to tell you guys, today, February 2, is the 8th birthday of Aidan Ortiz.

Aidan's mom, Jennifer, wrote to me a little while ago, to share Aidan's birthday wish. Here's what she wrote:
About a month ago, 20/20 aired a special called Be the Change: Save a Life. My son Aidan sat down to watch it and was especially taken aback by the number of children that died before the age of 5 because of a lack of clean water. He was impressed with Charity:Water's work, but didn't mention it again until Tuesday night. At the dinner table, he asked me if he could donate his birthday this year. So this year, instead of presents, his goal is to raise $800 for Charity:Water. He is asking all the kids in his class and going door to door on his bike this weekend, but I thought I'd help him out by sharing his story with you.

Well, it turns out Aidan blew right past his goal, so he's now aiming to raise $5000 for Charity: Water. He's currently raised $2078. How amazing is that?! I'm sure most 8 year olds want video games or action figures for their birthday. Aidan wants children to have clean drinking water.

From Aidan's Charity:Water campaign page:
Water is more important than toys I will get on my birthday. There are kids who do not even get to turn 5 years old because they have dirty water. This makes me sad.

So, I don't want presents this year or a big party.

Instead, I am asking everyone to give $8 because I am turning 8 years old. Please help my birthday wish come true and help an entire community get clean water.

Click here to make a donation!

There are 61 days left in Aidan's fundraising campaign, and if you'd like to support an incredibly generous young man, please consider making a donation. $8 for his 8th birthday! I think it's moving to see someone so young with such a philanthropic spirit, so I hope we can show him that goals can be reached and change can happen. And imagine what he might do when he gets older! :)

Thanks for being such an inspiration, Aidan! And have a spectacular birthday!!!