Friesencold

TJ and I decided recently that I would be paid $30 a month for responding to all the MealBaby customer feedback emails. Really, I was just wanting to figure out a way to get myself a little spending money for random odds and ends we haven’t budgeted for. But it’s motivating and it makes me feel “official” as I respond to all the customer feedbacks when I know I’m being paid. Plus since I’m 30 this year, $30 matches that. I like things that match.

My first $30 for January went to a hair product called Phyto glossing cream, 5 bookmarks from Anderson’s, and 2 clearance frames from Target. It is fun to be able to buy things like this without wondering what budget category they’ll go in or just not buying them at all because of that. This month, I jumped to buy the newest AKR children’s book whose official release date was today. I pre-ordered The Wonder Book on Amazon as soon as I found out about it, and received it today. Yay! And I still have money left!

The way I found out about this book of Amy’s is that last Friday night, I was not having Arts Hour but was instead on the computer doing something. When I finished whatever it was that was obviously not important enough to remember, I thought to check the WordPress page of Amy Krouse Rosenthal.. This is a site I had bookmarked a long time ago, but I must check it like once a year or maybe twice if I’m lucky.

Well I was definitely lucky on Friday night because I caught wind of Amy’s latest project, a blog called Miss(ion) Amy K.R. that is a part of the Chicago NPR affiliate’s website. I was able to go back and catch up on all her blog posts since the beginning of January since that is when this project of hers launched. It is all very exciting to me.

To sum up, each week on Monday, Amy introduces a mission for the week and asks her readers to participate and then to share about their participation, both in words and images (pictures/videos) if appropriate.  There is a midweek post on Wednesdays, called an Inter Mission, and you have the choice to listen to elevator music or elevating music while you read it. Then on Friday, there is another post which is an update on how the week went based on readers’ feedback and submissions of how they participated in this week’s mission.

So far there have been 5 missions:
Always Trust Magic 1/11
Learn Something From Our Kids 1/18
Loose Change the World 1/25
Slow Down and Do That One Thing 2/1
Make A Grand Gesture 2/8

It was very fun for me to go back and read each week’s mission first, then the Inter Mission on Wednesday of that week, and then the results of each week’s mission. I am so glad I learned about this now instead of in, like, June. That would have been a little daunting to catch up on, not to mention all the missions I would have missed being a part of.

This week there is a Guest Blogger since Amy is on tour promoting her new book, so don’t be thrown off if you go looking for Amy and see another writer instead. It’s still very Amy-esque.

I will let you go, but it should be obvious by now that I love this blog of Amy’s. What I really love is how Amy seems genuinely excited about helping others find a way to be a part of something bigger. I am excited about participating in missions to come….still thinking about what kind of grand gesture I might do this week. If even one of you gets as excited as I am about all this, it’s going to make it even more exciting for me! So if and when you have time, you must go back and catch up on reading about the 5 missions so far and just get a sense for the fun creative spirit of one of my favorite authors, Amy Krouse Rosenthal.