Volunteering

A random thought. Lately I feel like my conversations with friends revolve around doing things for others. I have two friends, in particular, who are INCREDIBLY giving. One is going to donate a kidney! To a perfect stranger. I mean, really...It's amazing. The other spends several nights a week and a bunch of weekends a year volunteering.

I so admire them. It would never cross my mind to donate an organ to someone. It just wouldn't. I'd be scared. And I just don't volunteer anymore.

I used to do unto others as I'd have them do unto me, before the kids arrived. I coached younger kids in basketball all through high school. I worked at a camp for inner-city kids in StL every summer, and more basketball camps than I can remember. I served on the Human Rights Commission in Richfield, and had people talking to me about running for City Council or School Board. And I worked for four years at Big Brothers Big Sisters.

But now my time has gotten away from me. I need to get back to it. I need to carve out the time, or pick things that my whole family can do together. If anyone has suggestions, let me know. The problem is that I always feel like I'm taking time away from something that important - time from Chuck or the kids, time from work, time from my own exercising (which I'm pretty bad at carving time out for anyway). I definitely want to work for the schools that the kids will attend and coach teams if they decide to play sports, but that's a few years off.

So there is my random thought. Gotta think up something to do.