Curbstone Setter Day

It is so easy to fuss over a pet. Animals are so accomplished at enjoying the attention, and even encouraging us to offer more! We also nurture animals in a very similar way to how we nurture our friends. We offer food and entertainment, we give cheerful compliments, and we express concern about comfort. Animals can’t get enough of our attention! Humans are reluctant to accept any.

So --- those pets are a great way to pamper – and help – your friend!!

• Lavish the pet with treats.


• Become a routine dog-walker, either replacing a friend who is unable to take his/her own pet for a walk, or accompanying your friend a couple of times a week.


• Cats love food treats – find out what kind your friend’s kitty likes and keep some on had so you can deliver a can when you visit.


• Offer to make a grooming or vet appointment, and do the drop-off / pick-up.

Today's Quote: You were the one who made things different, you were the one who took me in. You were the one thing I could count on, above all, you were my friend. --Tom Petty

Dirty Laundry

Why is it that something so simple as putting clothes into a machine, waiting half an hour then transferring them to another machine, and then 40 minutes later removing them can bog us down so much? When my grandma did laundry, it was an all day ordeal. I remember her wringer washer, and how she hung all the clothes outside to dry. As little girls my sister and I thought it was great fun. I’m sure my grandma didn’t, but I have no recollection of her complaining. I always think of her when I hear people complain about doing laundry.

For a family with small children or active teens, and a serious crisis such as a family death, surgery of a parent, or diagnosis of cancer, keeping up with the laundry can be monumental. But laundry is also pretty personal. Few people seem comfortable allowing friends to take their dirty laundry home, wash it and bring it back.

Here’s one way to offer help with the dirty laundry task:

• Stop by (after calling first!) to deliver warm muffins for breakfast.
• While visiting over the pastries and a cup of coffee, offer to put a load of laundry in.
• Suggest that you’ll do a load of jeans or towels – or something else that isn’t as private as undies.
• When you hear that the washer has finished, transfer the clothes to the dryer, and offer to put in another load.

Doing this in your friend’s presence will help put him/her at ease with your help.

Doing the laundry at your friend’s house also relieves any concerns about detergent allergies, and about all the clothes making it back where they belong.

It sounds simple. It sounds petty … some might even question the point of addressing it in a blog. But it isn’t simple. It is one of the most difficult forms of help for a friend to accept. It is also one of the ways a family can most use the help!

If you have some creative ideas for helping your friend eliminate the dirty laundry during a challenging time of life, please click on COMMENTS and share your suggestion.

Today’s Quote: I can do no great things, only small things with great love. – Mother Theresa

Comfort Food

Today is Butterscotch Pudding Day. I never crave butterscotch pudding, and quite honestly, it is not a food I ever want to splurge the calories for. However - it is one of the first foods that comes to mind for me when thinking of comfort foods if someone in my family is sick. That's because Aimee and her dad always wanted it whenever they were sick. We always kept a few boxes on hand, and if someone got a cold, the pudding was a must!

Several years ago after I had surgery a friend brought me a fabulous meal. Her husband told me it was what she always delivered to friends if she was 'taking a meal.' When she shared the recipe with me I was most impressed, because it was a ton of work!! I felt special.

Isn't that what comfort food is all about? Making our friend feel special. When we learn of a death in a friend's family one of the first instincts is to take food. When someone is hospitalized we offer to take food for the family. When friends move to a new house, we offer to feed them during the move. It IS what friends do! That's actually how we came up for the name of the WhatFriendsDo.com website.... so often we would hear people say "you didn't have to do that for me" .. and our response is always "it's what friends do."

Before we created the website, we had several friends going through serious, long illnesses. Like so many others, we wanted to help. But we didn't want to be intrusive. We didn't want to overload the families with food when others were also providing meals. We wanted to know how we could best help, and when! We've "been there" with spending long hours at the hospital only to go home to oodles of voice messages from concerned friends, but we were too exhausted to return the calls. The offers of "call me if you need anything" were always genuine, but asking was exhausting, and felt awkward. Gosh, we just needed comfort food! :)

WhatFriendsDo.com has all the tools for friends to stay close, keep informed, and provide the best comfort food! The team Help Schedule even allows your friend to specify just what it is they consider comfort food -- and what foods they really will only be saying they like to be polite - but they wish nobody would bring! :) Check it out!

Today's Quote: “Food is not about impressing people. It's about making them feel comfortable.”Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

Friendship! Step Right Up!

On September 16 WhatFriendsDo.com ‘celebrates’ Step Family Day and National Women’s Friendship Day. I want to tie both of these days together through one family.

I am very blessed with amazing girlfriends. One of my longest friendships is with Libby. We met in a bowling league when we were 19. We’ve shared many fun times together over the years. We each had baby showers for the other, attended one another’s weddings, celebrated quite a few birthdays together. We craft-buddies and have gone on many fun ‘field trips’ to craft stores. Libby took me to my first ceramics class (more on where that led in another blog post another day!). Libby was also one of my very first email-pals – way back in the day (1994) when virtually nobody had even heard of email! It was our link while she lived in another state for a few years. Like most long-time friendships, along with the joys, we have also shared some difficult times. We’ve shed tears, vented stories of anger, and helped one another sort things out more times than either of us needs to count!

We helped each other get through some difficult times. I helped clean her basement after the movers packed the truck. Libby sat at my kitchen table and wrote out the checks for me to sign so my bills would get paid the day after my husband died. Libby’s driven me to doctor appointments. I waited in the waiting room with her husband while she was in the operating room. I drove her kids to the dentist while she recuperated. The list goes on and on. It’s what friends do.

I remember having lunch with Libby one day in the cafeteria where she worked. She told me about this guy she’d been seeing, and how it all started. Naturally, since Libby’s children were preschoolers, my concern was with how he treated her children (I knew he treated her well – the glow on her face said it all!).

Twenty-plus years later, I have so much admiration and respect for Libby’s husband Randy. He is quite an accomplished man, and many would list his business accomplishments, and those are more than commendable. But the saying “any man can be a father; it takes someone special to be a dad” is why I respect Randy. He has been a disciplinarian, a teacher, a great role model, an amazing provider, and has loved Libby’s children with all of his heart and more. To top all that off, both of his children – his by way of his marriage to them and their mom – recognize and appreciate all that he’s been to them.

So what does this have to do with providing support for a friend in need? Families going through a crisis, health challenge, move, addition of a new baby to the family need all the support they can get. Step families probably need more, especially if relationships are tense. Giving encouragement and providing extra help will serve as good examples to help families build their bond during rough times.

It seems quite fitting to me that my friend Randy is celebrating his birthday today – on Step Family Day. Randy doesn’t think of his family a step family – but today it seems worthwhile to me to mention it – because if it helps just one other family blend into perfect harmony, it will be worth these words!! Happy Birthday, Randy!

Today’s Quote: But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine. – Thomas Jefferson

Positive Thinking Day: Honoring Kurt

Today’s posting is dedicated to the family of Kurt Brattain. Kurt was a wonderful kid, with a great sense of humor and great faith. Unfortunately, depression became bigger than all of those things, and he took his own life on December 4, 2006

The awful tragedy of losing Kurt was, as would be expected, devastating to the Brattain family. But through their grief they turned their loss into a positive. Mom Lisa got involved with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. The Central Indiana Chapter of AFSP had its first meeting on February 5, 2008, and Lisa Brattain is the Chair of this Board of Directors in honor of Kurt.

Today Lisa and the rest of Kurt’s family will be joined by friends in Indianapolis’
2008 Out of the Darkness Community Walk to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Team Kurlte Power is raising funds and raising awareness.

September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Do your part to reach out to a friend who is struggling emotionally….it’s what friends do…. And you never know when you may be the one to make a difference!

Today is Positive Thinking Day. Lisa Brattain certainly exemplifies what positive thinking can do!

Today’s Quote: When you are kind to someone in trouble, you hope they'll remember and be kind to someone else. And it'll become like wildfire. – Whoopi Goldberg

The Warmth of a Milk Shake

Several years ago when my friend Pam had surgery I was on my way to visit her and she asked if I’d stop and get her a milk shake. Of course I would. Little did I know as I agreed that I’d have to drive an extra 30 minutes to get it from just the right place. But that was ok – because going out of our way is what friends do! She’s certainly gone well out of her way for me often enough.

Throughout Laura’s illness many of us took her milk shakes. They were one of her favorite cravings, and we were all glad to get some extra calories for her.

Knowing that something as simple as taking a friend a milk shake can make a difference, we promote things like Milk Shake Day on WhatFriendsDo.com. Trying to figure out what to do for a friend whose normal life has become filled with daily doctor/clinic visits and treatments can be difficult. The whole WhatFriendsDo.com concept of special cheer days was started as a pure means of keeping our friend Laura in good spirits, and keeping everyone in her life involved.

So take your friend a milk shake … and if there are other family members take shakes for them, too. You’ll be a hero, but you’ll feel like you are the one who received a special gift. What a deal!

Be a Sew-Sew Friend!

On Saturday I made sit-upon for Elliott for pre-school. Friday night I took him, along with his sister Claire, to the fabric store and let him pick out whatever fabric he wanted. It was a tough choice for a 3-year-old – so many bright colors from which to choose. After searching through fabrics with balls, animals and fun designs, an ABC design was chosen, along with bright green – as green is Elliott’s favorite color. Claire also picked out some fun Strawberry Shortcake fabric for a blanket.

Elliott was so excited to see his sit-upon come together. He spread it out on the floor and tried it out and informed me that it was just right. I taught him how to fold it up, and today he will proudly take it to pre-school.

The project was so easy for me to do, and it brought joy to me as well as to Elliott. Isn’t it amazing that it is usually the small, simple, easy things we do that give us joy and spread cheer to others?

When we’re trying to think of how we can help a friend going through a crisis, we typically think first of food. But helpful tasks like mending clothing or sewing buttons back on can provide a great deal of relief. Sewing a doll dress for a little girl can bring a great deal of joy. Making a comfy blanket for a friend going through chemotherapy for cancer is a great gift, and will be welcomed for those long visits in the clinic.

September 10 is Sewing Machine Day, but any day is a good day to offer your services with needle and thread. And even if you don’t sew, you can take things to the alterations shop, pay for the repairs, and deliver the items back to your friend. You can even include some comfort food with the delivery.

Today’s Quote: Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us every day. --Sally Koch

The Joy of Music

Last weekend a large group of us went to an outdoor Beatles tribute band concert. It was great fun. Now, days later after a hectic week going full-speed each day, I think back to that evening and I’m reminded how great it was to purely enjoy the music and friends and put everything else out of my mind.

The same thing happens during handbell rehearsals – I don’t think about anything else (maybe because it takes all my concentration to get the notes? Ha!). Music has always been that way for me, though – it has always been a bit of an escape. Music can be both relaxing or energizing.
Since the goal of WhatFriendsDo.com is to help change the journey for friends going through a challenge, we often give suggestions that involve music. Sending a CD to a friend with a note about a favorite song serves so many purposes; it gives your friend a diversion from whatever he/she is going through, it is a reminder of your shared friendship.

Today is Music to My Ears Day. I think it’s a perfect day to make sure music is spread among friends – what a perfect gift!

Today’s Quote: A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.
— Unknown

The Sound of Your Voice

A few weeks ago I sent an email to my friends Janet and David, inquiring about the arrival of their first grandchild. I never received a reply. Over the weekend I asked friends Jane and Pam if they’d heard any baby news from Janet and David. Neither had, and Jane had also sent an email with no reply.

I guess it would seem logical that being the co-founder of a website to coordinate support for friends, I’m inclined to do a lot of my communicating via email, evites, blog posts/comments. But sometimes a phone call is in order. So I dialed Janet & David’s house – only to get a recording that the number had been disconnected, and there was no forwarding number. Hmmmmm….

Fortunately I had Janet’s cell phone number, and even more fortunately, she answered! We enjoyed a nice long phone chat and caught up on our respective families and jobs (they both retired and quickly decided to sell their house and move to another state!!).

The sound of a friend’s voice is so good! Email is efficient, and I’m certainly “all about it” .. but I do enjoy a phone call, especially for catching up with a friend I have not spoken with in a long time, or with a friend going through a difficult time.

Our goal with WhatFriendsDo.com is to help make the journey of a difficult situation a bit easier. We promote it online and we have a functional tool to use. But the bottom line is that friendships are friendships, and they are very personal – so pick up the phone and let your friend hear your voice. If you get voice mail – as we promote on What Friends Need to Know – leave a message of encouragement, love, cheer – and be sure to let your friend know that he/she does not need to call you back. Your friendship will stay on track, but for right now remember it may be 80/20 rather than 50/50 .. it is your time to give, and your friend will be forever grateful!

Oh yes - the grandbaby is a girl! :)

Today’s Quote: The better part of one's life consists of his friendships. --Abraham Lincoln