Feel Good Friday

Hello!  It’s Friday again, many people’s favorite day of the week (second only to Saturday).

I’ve summed up the stories I’ve posted, but these aren’t the complete stories.  Click the link to read the entire articles, see the pictures, or watch the videos.  Thanks for stopping by, and I hope these stories make you smile, the same way they did for me.

911 operator buys food for an elderly vet who needed help.  He was in the hospital, and when he was discharged, he had no food at home, no family to help, and no way of buying groceries.  The 911 operator and police bought him food and took it to his house.  He is now receiving assistance from social services.

A Phoenix police officer helped a homeless man by taking him to the hospital and making sure he had a plan to care for himself after surgery.  These things weren’t his job, but he did them anyway.  If he didn’t do them, they might not have gotten done, and the man obviously needed the help.

A school sends home an uplifting letter before a big test, to remind children that the test does not measure everything that’s important.  The original letter was apparently written in 1999, and it occasionally goes viral.  It just goes to show that we’re all hungry for positive feedback and that tests measure very little of who we actually are.

A teenaged boy took his great-grandmother to prom because “she’s the prettiest woman.”  The month before (linked in this article), another teen took her grandfather to prom.  Proms have come under fire for being superficial and girls wearing inappropriate dresses, so it’s nice to see this newer trend with teens taking family members or friends to prom.  (I’m a sucker for these stories.)  Here’s a link to another one where the high school quarterback took his friend, a girl with Down’s Syndrome, to the prom.

Shelter dog scheduled for euthanasia is adopted by a veteran, and is now in the running for hero dog of the year for helping the vet manage his PTSD and traumatic brain injury.

That’s all I’ve got for this week, but that’s obviously not all the news.  Remember, there’s a lot of good things in the world.  It’s what you focus on that matters.

Have a wonderful weekend!

U is for Ugly

Ugliness as a physical quality is underrated.

We all want to be beautiful, and we want to be surrounded by beauty and perfection.  I didn’t know how ingrained that attitude is until I read an article encouraging people to eat ugly fruits and vegetables.  Until that article, I didn’t realize that when I went to the grocery store, I sought out the shiny, the symmetrical, the apple without blemishes and the carrot that’s straight.  My husband bypassed boxes and cans that were smashed and tried to pick the one that looked nice, even when it wouldn’t affect what was inside, and that packaging was going to get thrown away anyway.

Statistics show that 40% of our food in the US is wasted.  Let that statistic sit with you for a second.  40%…

Not all of it is because of ugliness, but there is a significant portion of food in there that is thrown away because no one will buy it.  Some retailers won’t even put out the ugly stuff because they know no one wants it.

Millions of animals are euthanized every year.  Shelters know that if they want people to adopt, getting a cute picture out there is helpful.  Let’s face it; many people don’t want an ugly pet.  That’s why we like puppies and kittens.  They’re cute!

Back in the days of newspapers, my mom saw a black and white ad for a cute dog, so she went to go see him in the shelter.  The dog was ugly in person.  His coloring was actually brindle, but it didn’t look good on him.  She ended up adopting him anyway and loving him for many years.  But she probably wouldn’t have gone to see him in the first place if she’d seen him in a full color ad online instead of black and white in the paper.

In romance novels, most of the time the male and female main characters are described as being very attractive.  He’s got muscles.  She’s very pretty, even if she’s carrying a few extra pounds.  Why don’t ugly people (or even just average people) find love in novels?

I think that “average” has become the new “ugly.”  We’re told that there’s something wrong with us all the time.  There are tons of articles related to putting on make-up, getting a better butt, six pack abs, or looking good in a swimsuit.  Heck, there’s even standards for fruit these days!

We all want to be surrounded by pretty things.  I do too.  But in nature, it’s not the prettiest that survive, it’s the strongest.  That weird looking strawberry grew red and tasty.  That ugly dog is probably really loyal.

Can you believe I ever thought she was weird-looking?

Side note: When I got my German Shepherd, Stardust, at the shelter, I thought her nose was too long and that she was kind of funny looking.  But she was sweet, so I brought her home anyway.  I fell very much in love with her, and after awhile, it was hard to remember that I had ever found her anything but absolutely perfect.  Love is what makes things beautiful.  I really believe it.

Take the ugly filter off your eyes and your heart.

Once you do, it’s easy to see beauty everywhere.

(Oh, and buy ugly fruit and give that weird looking dog or cat a chance.)