Drive-In(side) the Box

Today I will keep you thinking outside the box by challenging you to consider how thinking outside of a box could actually require you to sit inside a box.

It's true.

For those of you who have been around awhile, today's featured idea is the equivalent of Dine By Design meets preschool.  Instead of grown women creating tablescapes and hosting a fancy dinner, hundreds of preschoolers in Grapevine were invited to watch a movie - a DRIVE-IN MOVIE!

The idea... use a cardboard box to create and trick out your ultimate dream machine.

This idea shines for 'o-so-many-reasons.  It's anything but mediocre.  It allows parents and kids to create - TOGETHER!  Creating allows us to use our strengths and to bring out the best in others.  It is total recognition of how something little (putting a twist on a traditional movie night) can make a big difference.  And, by virtue of my sharing this blockbuster idea, I might just be spreading a little shine.

If you aren't already thinking about how you could adapt this idea for your own little corner of the world then your thinking is way too inside the proverbial box and you need to set it free.  Kids birthday party, floor program in a college residence hall, block party contest between neighbors, Indy 500 party, entertaining kids while temporarily living in a hotel because your house caught on fire and it's not liveable.  The list goes on.

Here's what I want to know.  First, if creating your ultimate dream machine for a drive in movie, what would it be?  And second. what other outside-the-box ideas do you have about how today's idea might be adapted?  Zoom off to the Community Forum labeled, Today's Post and let us know.

Shining off until tomorrow... 

Go Naked

Some days shining comes naturally.  Other days finding some shine feels a little like getting blood from a turnip.  Today I feel more like a turnip.

All the more reason to wake up, to face the day, and to put something positive into the universe.

If, by the way, your Monday is feeling the same as mine consider taking a second today and participating in this week's Yellow Envelope Project.  Just click on Saturday's post and send a short note, in a yellow envelope, to a very deserving woman.  It will be your positive contribution to the universe and it will change the course of your Monday.

This week we are going to flex our shine muscles by thinking outside the box.  For the next six days I will present an idea, hoping that it will get you to do something or to think about something in a totally different way than is usual.

Today the post office is the recipient of our Shine Workout.  Your challenge is to find something interesting in your home or office and to mail it to me naked.  Naked, as so aptly defined for us by BKRoot last year, means not wrapped in a overdone, overused, unimaginative, completely boring box or padded envelope.  It means identifying your object, slapping the address on it, and then heading over to USPS and mailing it.

You are mailing your naked item to me, so that I can report on the state of your items when (if) they arrive in my mailbox.  My mailing address is:

I couldn't resist also trying to mail something naked.  But, rather than mail something to myself, I thought I would think outside the box and mail something naked to this week's Yellow Envelope recipient.  I didn't totally play along because none of us knows the recipient and we didn't want to scare her.  Instead I used it as a chance to package her note (written on the Shine Manifesto) inside something unconventionally shaped.  Take a look at the front and back (using my fancy packaging tape).

Later this afternoon I will report to the Community Forum labeled, Today's Post, to tell you about my escapade at the post office.  Will they mail it or won't they?  Inquiring minds want to know.  I hope you will keep yourself and your local post office on their toes by mailing me a piece of naked mail today.  Visit us in the Forum to tell us if you were successful.

Shining off until tomorrow...

Yellow Envelope Project: Bedford

Someday when hundreds of Yellow Envelope nominations are flooding in each week, I will reminisce about the days when I had to announce, remind, solicit, and yell from the mountain tops that, in order to keep our project alive, we need Yellow Envelope nominees!  Until then I will persist.  I will call friends on Friday in search of someone they know who shines, imploring them to give me a name and address... for tomorrow.  I will tell perfect strangers about the project hoping they will visit our site to submit a nomination.  Above all else, I will happily hog the right to recognize the countless people with whom I come in contact and who deserve Yellow Envelope Love.

I'm not too proud.  I believe in the this project and I won't stop until nominations flood in by the hundreds.

Here's why.  Each week I attend my Rotary meeting and each week a guest speaker stands up telling of the service project he or she is representing.  Restoring used computers for kids whose families could never afford one, purchasing water rights for reservations in the US that don't have clean water (yes, there are people in the US who don't have access to clean water), relief work in Haiti, Boy Scouts giving face lifts to run down parks, raising money for college scholarships, and seeking volunteers to help with the local Special Olympics are just a few.

These people, - all of them - they shine.  They shine because they embody so many of the principles outlined in our newly published Shine Manifesto.  None of these people will be featured on the news or will win an award.  No one is going to announce their achievements from the mountaintops.  But, when someone goes out of their way to brighten their corner of the world by putting service above self, we should feel a sense of urgency about recognizing and reinforcing their contributions.

We can't take a chance that their light - their energy - will flicker and then burn out.  Not when flooding their mailbox is so darn easy.

Let's take Karen for example.  Every day for the past five years, Karen the single mother of an adult child with severe disabilities, has fought an uphill battle.  She is blazing a trail trying to establish an assisted living center in North Texas that will serve a fraction of the more than 100,000 physically and intellectually handicapped adults who live in the area.  One woman working on the same goal for five years - a goal that you and I might easily dismiss because we aren't directly affected.  They've made some strides, but Karen and the small army of supporters she's gathered along the way, are years away from reaching their goal.

Karen is Relentlessly Passionate.

What would happen if there weren't the Karen's of the world?  What would happen if no one took an interest in helping physically and intellectually handicapped adults?  Where would they go?  Who would care for them when their aging parents passed away?  Karen is putting her passion and her discipline to work to make her corner of the world a better place.  It's a luxury we should not take for granted.

I wish you could have seen her speak.  She was so graceful, so intent on doing good, and so grateful for the chance to speak before a group of people who would listen. 

Please join me in thanking Karen for having the courage to be a voice for a population that all too many of us quietly overlook.

Participate in this week's Yellow Envelope Project.  It's easy.  Send a short note letting Karen know you heard about the work she is doing and that you think she shines.  Seal it in a yellow envelope (or white decorated with yellow markers).  Place the words, "Yellow Envelope Project" in the return address and commit to mailing it sometime before next Saturday when we post next week's recipient.

Here's her address:

It's that simple and it's that important.

Shining off until tomorrow...