Let your heart dream big

Front and Center, my new Popcorn Popper!

posted by Melissa Baumgart
The uncool part of Sweepstakes Month:

This company, if you can call it that, sends me several emails a day.  Each one more desperate than the next.  In the email account I set up for all my sweepstakes entries, the inbox looks like PCH is my best friend.  An insecure, lying and cheating best friend.  The kind that says you can borrow her beautiful cashmere sweater, and then changes her mind when you show up wearing nothing but your dingy white wife beater.  I have never had a friend like that and I don't even want one.  So, I am dumping PCH, if I can figure out how to get off of their subscription list.

I keep hoping to find an email from someone else in my inbox.  Someone telling me I won the set of pots and pans.  Someone telling me I won the trip to a tropical island.  Or even the simple sweepstakes entry for a book.  One book, come one...we're giving away four!

The coolest thing about sweepstakes month so far is this:

I have received so many "winnings" this month.  I have put out there to the universe the things that I want/need in life and they keep coming.  Just like Amy's rice cooker she was gifted by her friends, mine are also coming from unexpected sources.  Here is a list of all the things I have "won" this month...totally without PCH, thank you very much!

• A popcorn popper!  Hallelujah.  Except maybe I shouldn't be eating it every night.
• A new set of chairs for my dining room table!  Gorgeous antiqued copper metal chairs.  
• A check-up for our van, that is way long overdue.  
• The gift of dental health.  Not only from my daily flossing, but also by getting a cleaning from a real live dentist!
• An external hard drive to back up all my data.  (I have put this off, and bought groceries and paid bills instead, for way too long.)

Life is magical and beautiful things happen all the time.  I am so grateful to those that made these things possible in our life.  It has offered me a chance to see that life is full of sweepstakes...our communities and families and friends are always in a sublime dance of giving and receiving.  Just remember that each side of that equation is valuable.  It is important to be able to receive.  And to always remember to give, even when perceive your self with little to nothing, give nonetheless.  It doesn't take much to offer someone the gift of a helping hand or an open ear and a hug.  Which can be just as valuable as a new bedroom set.  (OK, so a new bedroom set is what I have been busy pinning on Pinterest, when I should be doing homework...or lending a helping hand.)

I encourage you all to make a list of the things you want/need, tangible and not.  Material and non-material.  Just let your heart dream big and see what comes back.

-Melissa