Over the last several months, I started to notice that my feet resembled this…

I hadn’t had a pedicure or a manicure in over two years.

I also stopped practicing yoga around the same time.

I made appointments for and treated myself to all three of these things yesterday.

It’s weird, but there were these moments during the yoga, the pedicure and the manicure, that I had a big ole’ lump in my throat.

I couldn’t figure out why…and then I realized that I stopped doing some of these nice things for myself just around the same time my mom died.

Why? I have no idea.

While focusing on my drying nails contemplating that very thought, the door opened to the salon. I looked up to see a woman with a familiar-looking face. I knew I had seen her before, but I couldn’t place her.

Then it hit me.

On January 14th, my mom’s birthday, I went into that same nail salon and bought a gift card for one of their patrons as a random act of kindness. After “scoping out the joint” I pointed to a woman with blond curly hair who was sitting all by herself. I asked if the manager would give the card to her after I left the salon. The manager’s response, “Good choice. She is a nice, happy lady.”

It was that lady.

If I had left just two minutes before or looked down at my phone or skipped the manicure, which was my original plan, I would have missed her.

But, I didn’t miss her.

And, maybe this all sounds “out there” but I think there’s a reason our paths crossed again.

What’s the reason? I’m not sure, but I did learn something about this woman several weeks after my mom’s birthday. This “nice, happy lady” decided to do something kind for another person after she received the gift card. She left another gift card for someone else. The recipient of that gift card paid it forward as an auction item for an important cause, which she posted about on our NoochieRAKs page.

So, maybe the reason that she (unknowingly) crossed my path is to remind me of the ripple effect of kindness to others and ourselves.

And maybe that the big ole’ lump in my throat is what happiness feels like sometimes.❤️

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#119. Wrote TWNMLL: The World Needs More Love Letters (x3)

#118. Treated myself to yoga and mani/pedi (RAK of the Week).

#117. Gave a little extra tip at the nail salon.

#116. Complimented a stranger’s outfit in the parking lot. She was taken aback smiled and said “thank you, this old thing?”