Post-it Lovin'

Reader,

Do I have a treat for you! I happen to have two separate arrays of Post-it photos... Over the last few days, I've been into leaving my notes in numbers! (Get it? Like strength... In numbers... Whoohoo.) I'm thinkin' that it makes the effect that much more effect-ful. :-)

The first set is from a Target bathroom, followed by a CUTE Post-it story. It'll make your sticky-note loving heart melt...





Cute story: For future references, Target is hopping at 7 o'clock on a Saturday evening... And placing my notes was hard work! Right as I finished getting them up on the mirror, a Latino mother and teenage daughter walked in. Frantic, I awkwardly turned around and went into a stall, hoping they just assumed I was doing my business. However, they immediately turned to the mirrors. The mother was so excited and said, "Awww! Look at the cute "stickies" all over the walls!" She then must have motioned for the teenage girl to come over because the girl happened to be talking on her cell phone and then preceded to tell whoever was on the other line about their discovery. She even read each note out loud to her phone-friend! This whole time, I was standing in the bathroom stall, smiling from ear to ear and probably radiating the entire bathroom! I was so excited, I could've just cried. :-)

Anyway, that was super exciting for me. They eventually left and I got my pictures... But good times. That's why I do what I do!

This second group of notes all went up on a mirror at school today! I had some time to kill before a meeting... And what better way to do it?






Well, that's all folks! Do you think I could ever make a living out of this blog/idea? Because I would thoroughly enjoy that. ;-)

Have a lovely evening!

Meagan

P to the S - World Kindness Day is coming up! Celebrate with some extra kindness on November 13th!

"How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a dark world."
- William Shakespeare

Inspiration All Around

Hello lovelies!

Happy Monday to you! Hope your first day of the week (And of November, for that matter) went well.

I have a few notes to catch up on: A few from a Social Justice Conference I went to... Read on! :-)

This was the first of three notes to be left on Thursday of last week. I attended a Social Justice Conference at a local college campus with a group of kids from school. It was super neat to listen to speakers, attend workshops, and be generally informed about injustices around the world, as well as locally. Very cool.

P.S. I've been trying to think of the saying on this note ("Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.") for FOREVER. I finally saw it somewhere publicly the other day... And was itching to get in on a Post-it!
This note also went up at the Social Justice Conference. I just couldn't contain myself! ;-)

And lastly, this lovely Post-it went up in a bus seat on the way home from our outing. It must've been conference inspiration! Side note: This Post-it quotation came from a presentation done at our school district by the name of Rachel's Challenge. If you aren't familiar, you should definitely check it out! Anyway, it's a super inspiring story about the power of kindness. And these were some of the many provoking words Rachel wrote while she was alive. Good stuff.

Okay, well off to do some homework. May you have a lovely week until my next post!

Meagan

Short & Sweeeet

Hope you had a spledid Tuesday!
This is a belated note from this weekend. I left it at a Kwik Trip gas station on the way home from a volleyball game. There was a ton of pent up excitment because, by winning that game, we had also earned the regional title... I think you can almost SEE my excitment written all over this note.

Anyway, I've felt really good about Post-it noting lately... It hasn't been stressful, yet it always pops up in my mind throughout the day. (Which is actually saying a lot, because many other important, school-related things DO NOT pop into my head quite as frequently.)

Well, this post was a bit short. I think keeping up with blogging makes it less of a chore... and a little bit more fun to read! Long posts look intimidating, huh? I'll try to stay more organized. ;-)

Meagan

& the Movement Continues...

Dear lovely Reader,

I LOVE addressing my posts to the "Reader." However, I usually feel rather silly when I do, because I'm fairly certain that there may be one or two (Including me!) who ever lay eyes on this little blog. But it's so fun to address it to the general Reader—it makes it seem more personable and a little more prestigious... Not that I should be looking for prestige with a motive such as mine, but after awhile, it's fun to imagine making a career out of such a small hobby.

Recently, we had an extra long, four-day break from school and all that good stuff. I spent most of it with a girlfriend at her Grandma's house and the rest of it between volleyball practice, work, and hanging with good people. Among many other spontaneous adventures, placing Post-its was high on the priority list!
This little note—I apologize for the yucky picture, I was in a hurry!—was one of two notes placed at the Mall of America. My friend and I spent a day there with her Grandma (Who's definitely on the list of the cutest people I've ever met!) and it so happens to be the perfect place to leave Post-its.
This is the second note placed at the lovely MOA—If I remember right, they both went in bathroom stalls. Side note: I also love forgetting/mixing up where I placed certain Post-it notes. Pictures help, but when I'm placing enough notes to where I begin to loose track of them... I know I'm doing something right!

This third note went up on a mirror in a women's bathroom. A friend and I saw a movie (Social Networking, if your wondering. It was a goodie!) and I decided to place a note on the way out. Whoot, whoot!And last, but certainly not least, Today's note...
This little bugger went up at SCHOOL. Yes, school. I haven't left a note in that building for awhile. Shall I elaborate?

1.) I'm always fighting bad mental states while I'm at school. Between rude peers, careless actions, and immature disruptions, I'm pretty sure I was over high school before I even entered the doors. I actually am quite grateful for the district in which I live, but I definitely went through a short phase where leaving encouraging notes seemed less than desirable. I was just really fed up with school life. However, looking back, I suppose that's when the Post-it Effect does its best work!
2.) It's spreading. I'm not joking! This statement makes me sooo excited I just about get choked up. To make a long story short, through a group of students identified as "leaders" within our building, a group of faculty as begun working with them/us to make kindness and respect more evident in the everyday classroom. I happen to be involved in this and as I mentioned a week or so ago in a blog-post (I AM Alive) one of my close friends had brought up the idea of posting kind notes like the ones she had found... Left behind by some "stranger." Gee, who would do that?! Anyway, from there, a group of 10-15 kids were assigned to leave ONE random note last week. ONE note = 15 Post-its floating around our building. How CRAZY is that? Yes, I shed some tears of joy... Not in front of them, of course—I still have an anonymous identity! You may be asking yourself right about now, "Why is this relevant? Wouldn't this make this crazy, teenage girl even more fired up about the movement?" Well the truth is, it should have. I think the whole situation just caught me off guard... I got nervous! I never, ever, in my wildest dreams expected anything extra to come from this. Literally—I wasn't even sure how long I would keep up with it.

The good news is, I'm back at it. The GREAT news is, so is a small group of kids from my school. They have no idea that I have any connection to this idea's origination... And frankly, I like it that way. Yeah, it's only 15 more kids... Yeah... That's only 14 more notes. But remember when it was one? One kid? One note? That is what a chain reaction is all about. That is the essence of the Post-it Effect.

Later,

Meagan

Church, Choir & that of the Sort.

Have I ever taken the time to mention to the blog-world how infatuated I happen to be with fall weather? Because I really, really am.

If only I took a bit more time to enjoy it...

Post-it notes? Yes, I'm gleaming with excitement and pride for updating within a week or so of my last post... I truly do have good intentions of posting often, however, life is so busy and I occasionally have the attention span of a housefly.

Here she is, though!

I put it up at church today. I'm trying to have a better attitude about church and "religion," in general. I easily get fed up with how political and routine it can become... But I guess you have to be the change you want to see, eh?

I also left another note after a choir concert this afternoon. I didn't leave it for anyone specifically - just on the floor on a green Post-it. It said "To know one life has breathed easier because you have lived... This is to have succeeded." by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Picked this quotation because it's literally timeless and I never get sick of it... And I had to think up something witty off the top of my head and I seem to always be able to remember Emerson's advise word for word.

Anyway, that's a brief update on the Post-it status. Lately, I've been really bad about loosing my pads of notes. I have quite a lovely collection and should probably learn to take better care of it...

Okay, - Gotta bounce. Later!

Meagan

I am ALIVE

Dear friends of the blog world,

Good thing I don't have a bajillion followers, or I'd be a pretty disappointing blog. I truly do apologize for not getting stuff up here. Yes, I know I won't be doing it everyday... But when I let weeks and weeks pass me by, that's just being lazy.

In my defense, school has been NUTS and I don't think I ever have a moment where there's not some kind of homework I could be doing. Granted, sometimes it's not necessarily graded and things that make my heart happy (Like this!) are much more important.

Anyway - getting down to the nitty gritty - this note, I left in the bathroom at my church. Last Sunday was a bit of a controversial Sunday/church meeting and tension was high! So, feeling a bit drained from all the church politics, I snuck down to the basement and placed my note. It felt so good!

It really is amazing how leaving a note can change the leaver. Especially with the long no-posting break I took, it was obvious to me how energized I felt after leaving the Post-it. I almost wish everyone would leave just one note, no matter how silly it may seem, because I think - whether they want to admit it or not - it feels good to do good.

Oh, oh! The most exciting thing happened! Britt, you're probably the only one that might actually read this and you already know... But in case there's any mystery readers out there - I was at a leadership conference sort of thing a few weeks ago and we were talking about the power of small acts of kindness. Within our discussion, a good girlfriend of mine raised her hand and made a comment about Post-its she had found over the course of last year and how awesome they had been for her. She said they made her day and she didn't know who was doing it, but that those were the acts of kindness that she holds closest to her heart. And, if you've read any other posts, this is the SAME GIRL that questioned me mulitple times last year (Who, me?; A Close Call; Addie's at it Again) about whether or not I was writing the notes. I must be a good liar! ;-)

Well, on that note, hopefully I'll be getting Post-its out more regularly now. I've missed it and believe that even through a crazy class schedule and busy life, taking two minutes to write out a note is good for me & good for someone else.

That reminds me of a quote (I want to say it was spoken by Gandhi, but I don't really remember):

If you want to make others happy,
practice compassion.
If you want to be happy,
practice compassion.

So true, huh? Well that's my Wednesday's Words of Wisdom! Have a lovely night and hopefully I'll update soon!

Meagan

Catch-up!

Happy Saturday!

So, when I wrote "Post to you soon!" at the end of my last blog post... I really didn't intend for it to be a big, fat lie! But it sort of ended up that way, with school starting and all that crazy fall stuff.

However, I'm here to deliver Brittany's lovely photographs from our mall posting day! I also tacked on another note that I left a few days after my hang with her.

First things first-- Britt's notes:
So awesome!

And this note went up a few days later while shopping with a few girlfriends. I saw an idea like this in the Operation Beautiful Book and LOVED the thought. Well, don't be surprised if blogging slows a little bit... Getting on top of my new school schedule/sports/work will probably take some getting used to. However, I will still be placing notes when the opportunity arises! Obvi.
;-)

Have a lovely afternoon!

Meagan