Pass it on . . .

(I usually write much better than this, but I am super burnt out tonight. But this story had to be told!)

So after I discovered that my first pay check after coming back to work was $26 and my second pay check was barely over $100, I was pretty upset. I am working full time too ... I had thought that all my back health insurance, etc.was caught up. . . so Mike and I had budgeted my pay check for gas, bills, house payment, etc. Me basically not getting paid really messed us up.
Because Mike is a painter, work is kind of hit and miss this time of year. He has been working when there has been work . . . but he has had some time off.
We had spent all our savings when Mike was out of work before and while I was on maternity leave.There was nothing left there.
I try really hard not to let things that I have no control over get to me, but this time I could not help it. Luckily, we already had bought Christmas for the kids, but we were planning on going to Utah to visit Mike's family, and we still had monthly bills to pay and Christmas presents for our families. And we really, really needed to go grocery shopping. We have had  to let some bills slide, living on one income is hard in this economy, but now the bills were needing to be paid ASAP. It came down to trying to decide if we should  pay bills or buy groceries. I was so worried, literally worried sick. I went home early and wondered what in the hell we were gonna do.
Mike and I talked for awhile and came up with a sort of back up plan. .. then we talked about how thankful we are to have what we have.We have a roof over our heads, we have heat, we have clothes, and we both have jobs. We are doing pretty good, and we are thankful for that. I think about that every day.
Saturday night we were doing some major "spring" cleaning, gathering a bunch of stuff to donate  to the DI, etc. Our house was ungodly hot, so we cracked the front door to let it cool off . . .
I went to the basement to switch out the laundry, and Mike was in another room. When I came upstairs our dog was standing at the door like someone was there. I went to the door to investigate, and when I opened it I had to do a double take.
Sitting on our front step were several wrapped packages. No one around, just the packages. I yelled at Mike to come to the door, and he was just as shocked as me. We brought the boxes inside and opened them . . . one contained a whole frozen turkey, another held two bags of potatoes, then there was a basket with soup and fruit and two bags with some toys for the kids. There was also a card that held several 20$ bills and a note that read, "To Jenny and Mike from people who care."
I think I almost passed out. We both immediately called our families demanding to know who to thank, and both sides swore it was not them. I am still in shock and it is now Tuesday night.
I snuck away for awhile into a dark room and did a lot of thinking and a little crying, not gonna lie.
I thought about all the times recently that I had lost faith in humanity or gotten upset with someone for cutting me off while driving or something like that. I felt so grateful and so guilty at the same time.
I thought about people that maybe I have not been nice to in the past, or things i have said that maybe I should not have.
That night I vowed to be more thankful and to work on making myself a better person. I have already made a concious effort to do that in the last year, but this experience lit the fire even more.
I also thought about all the people who could use what we had. We are going through a hard time, but there are many who are well worse off than us.
There are those commercials that show a person helping someone out, then that person does something nice for someone else, ect. I am so inspired. I have decided that I will do something nice for someone now . .. something that make someone feel as good as I did Saturday night.

I know that know matter how hard things get, there are always people who care, and I know that even more now.

Doing something nice for someone feels great . . . pass it on.