Day 20: Take baked goods to a fire station or police station.

Challenge Day 20: Take baked goods to a fire station or police station.
Yippee! This is a very fun challenge. I love to bake. And I knew right away that I wanted to bake cookies for our local Eagle Rock fire station - they are so nice. I decided to also take cookies to Pasadena Station 38 - the fire fighters who performed the recent emergency response training for our church. They were so helpful, informative, and kind.

What kind of cookies should I make? Firefighters have a reputation of being good cooks, so nothing too ordinary. I decided to make one of my favorite recipes, Cherry Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies (secret ingredient - orange zest).

So after work I baked while Maya did homework. Mmm. Nothing like the smell of baking cookies. Delightful. I doubled the usual batch and ended up with 8 dozen - way too many cookies. Oh darn, guess we have to eat some. They tasted pretty good too. As my daughter said, "Yo brah, these cookies are legit." That means good, right?

I wrapped each plate in cellophane and colorful ribbon with a nice thank you note. Maya was uncharacteristically amenable to going with me to drop them off. She even changed her clothes and applied a little mascara. Hmm. No surprise there - those guys at Station 38 are a bit hunky.

So off we went. On the way we talked about how grateful we are to fire fighters for risking their lives for us and other unsung heroes deserving of our gratitude - like the local crossing guard lady.

We dropped off the cookies and expressed our thanks at both stations. The fire fighters were very appreciative. Maya commented how she felt like such a good Samaritan. It did feel good to share our gratitude in this way.

I think we'll practice gratitude like this more often.