Giving

So as I think I said before, baking bread everyday has turned out to be the easy part. The hard part is the giving away. I now realize that I'm always afraid that even something intended as a kind gesture will be seen as intrusive or inappropriate.

I have had to fight my tendency to scuttle up to my target, ashamedly hand them a loaf of bread while muttering something about having extra bread, and running off. Not exactly in line with my intention of making friends, strengthening ties, and learning about Syracuse. For example, my idea for bringing bread to the Ronald McDonald House came from friends who had brought strawberries there once after picking more than they could eat themselves. But I don't know anything about the RMH AT ALL, other than that it seems like the parents staying there might need all the homebaked bread and freshly picked strawberries they can get. The lady at the Ronald McDonald House seemed very happy to receive the bread, but my husband and I are both surprised that a place like that, which I assume is run by a large organization with lawyers, etc., would accept bread from a stranger showing up at the door. I mean, what if I had poisoned it, and then a guest there ate some! I can't imagine why anyone would do that to people staying at the RMH, but corporations don't like to take chances. But did I ask, while I was there, if they could accept these kinds of donations and if it was actually something they encouraged so I would know next time I wanted to bring them something? I did not.

I have decided that "I made you some bread" is probably a better opening, even if I feel that it's not strictly true since I usually don't know who is going to get it when I'm making it. I'm not really telling people about my Challenge or the blog; not taking pictures of people I'm giving bread to. Just keeping track every day of what kind I make and who gets it.

In another post I'll list who's been given bread as well as my recipe, because it's wicked easy, and you should totally try it.

Crazy Idea?: February Bread Challenge

In The Happiness Project, the Gretchen Rubin occasionally gives herself a challenge, such as the Week of Extreme Nice. Here is her explanation:

What is “Extreme Nice”? It’s an extreme sport like bungee jumping or skydiving—pushing the envelope, exerting myself beyond my ordinary efforts, finding new depths in myself to meet the hardest challenges. And I can do it in my own home.

So this week I intend to be utterly nice to [my husband]. No criticism. No pestering. No bickering. Jumping up to do whatever he asks me to do, responding enthusiastically to his every suggestion.

Maybe I need a challenge like this? According to GR, being happier requires you to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth. I have grown in many ways since becoming a mom 5 1/2 years ago, but these ways were largely chosen for me and out of necessity, by this or that Parenting Challenge. Now I finally feel like I can attempt a little growth for myself. I have a few areas of my life in mind that could use some attention, and this challenge would address a couple of them. Here's my idea: make bread every day for a month.

In order to get really good at something, in order to become an expert, you need to do it A LOT. Like, for 10,000 hours. I'm not proposing spending 20 hours/week for 10 years making bread. I don't need to do it that well. But it's certainly something I'd like to get better at, and I think a lot of baking for a few weeks would take me to the next level.

Gretchen Rubin also says that it's easier to do something EVERY DAY than to do it every other day or every few days. I have definitely noticed this with exercise. And with this blog.

But that would result in a lot of bread, especially considering that I am currently working on ways to increase efficiency by baking more than one loaf at a time and freezing the extra. Even though we have a pretty big freezer, 1 or 2 loaves a day for 29 days--or 21 days if I do only week days--or 25 days if I were to only take one day a week off--that would be a lot of bread. So there's another component to the Bread Challenge.

A friend from Cleveland, Emily, has been making pies (a. lot. of. pies.) since last summer, and blogging about it at her blog, Pie Eyed. A couple of months ago, she started giving away pie once a week to someone she encountered in her daily life who brightened her day: the oil-change guy; the lady at the convenience store; the guy who works as Subway. She calls it Pie It Forward. Maybe I could give away fresh-baked bread?

We have only lived in this area for 4 years, and the first couple I was either pregnant or taking care of a baby, and I don't tend to learn new areas very well, and I am not always one to jump in and meet someone new because I do a lot of second-guessing myself, and I always want to find ways to help the community but it can be a project to figure out where, say, Ronald McDonald House is and do they take used toys, or do they have a rule against it, etc.

So I think this would

1. Get me out in the community, meeting neighbors on our street as well as learning where a place like the Ronald McDonald House is;
2. Give me a chance to do something nice for other people, which will hopefully lift their spirits as well as my own;
3. Give me a chance to thank people who have helped me out in the past, like the Bunny Foster Home Lady who gave me a bucket of bunny poop for my garden and who works really hard helping bunnies find homes--gratitude is an important way to help you appreciate the Abundance in your life;
4. Get me chatting and connecting with new people--who knows? I may even make a friend, which would help me feel more Abundance; and
5. Help me to share what I have, which I believe is a big way to feel Abundance.

I don't know if or how I'm going to do it. If I do it, I will definitely post about it on my blog. I will leave you now with a quote I found on the Internet yesterday that probably doesn't really apply, but here it is anyway:

"Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one."  -- Nikolai Berdyaev