CIndy Day 1

Edit from Erinn: Cindy got extra days... why? Not just because she's been my number 1 cheerleader, or featured in many of my own good deeds, but because she was hospitalized because of one of her good deeds. AND she's still friends with me.

So yeah, she got a few extra days, deal with it.

Hello everyone out there in Blogger-land. I am kind of new to this whole blogging thing. I did just in the past 2 months set up my own blog. You can read it at http://mathmediablog.blogspot.com/ . It’s about using technology in a math classroom or my experiments with it. So anywho I teach across the hall from Project Nice coordinator and cheered her on when she first began the be nice to a stranger project. I try to always be nice to people so I thought this wouldn’t be so hard. I have learned that my unplanned attempts at being nice go much smoother than my planned ones! I hope you will find some comic relief in the account of my attempts at being overly nice. Happy Nice Blogging!

TITLE: Dessert for the security guards

Date: 6 Feb 2010 aka Snowpocalypse weekend

Explanation of the act:

Our little community has a guard shack at the entrance. These guys have to deal with people who can’t use a call box and keep out those who shouldn’t be in the neighborhood. They don’t get paid much and always have a wave when you are entering and exiting the community. We are currently snowed in with 3ft of snow! They are stuck here in an 8 by 8 room (if its even that big). I decided they needed some dessert.

Event:
Prior to the snowpocalypse I got the ingredients at the store – chocolate cake mix, chocolate cook and serve pudding, containers. While snowed in I made the dessert. It is super simple – make the cook and serve pudding according to the directions then mix in the dry cake mix, stir and put on a sheet pan. I then made a buttercream icing and mixed in mini chocolate chips. Once the cake was cool I cut it in half, spread the icing on one half, sandwiched them together. The tough part was not the making but the travel to the guard shack! That took way more effort to go the ¼ to ½ mile there in 3 feet of snow. I met a few of my neighbors along the way which was nice. One lady was impressed and gave me some sodas to take them as well! Spreading the nice!

Reactions:
When I eventually got there two guards were pretty engrossed in conversation. They opened the door and I explained I brought them dessert to thank them and that someone else donated the sodas. They thanked me and that was that. They weren’t overly excited (but that’s because they hadn’t tasted them yet!)

Would I do it again?

Sure! When snowed in I have nothing but time so an hour to make the food and the trek over there (30 min or so) was not a big deal and I got quite the cardio workout! Everyone likes to be appreciated.

Cost: About $5-$7 because I had a few ingredients already at home

Effort: More effort was in the walking over than the baking

Time: About an hour with the cake, cooling, another hour for walking there and back and socializing with neighbors along the way.