Ulog 3: Random Rocks of Kindness!

Hello, lovely Steemlings.

It's the weekend and time for another #ulog.

This has been one of those hard weeks where it is to stay motivated. All good intentions at the beginning of the week kind of went right out the window. But I honestly think some weeks you just have to acknowledge that things aren't going to go the way you plan and roll with the punches.

But that's okay..tomorrow is the start of a whole new week so we will give it another go :)

What I really wanted to talk about today was something I discovered this morning while at our weekly boot camp. We do boot camp in one of the parks in a beautiful beachfront reserve. The reserve is actually made up of a number of different parks along the coast, and they are separated by some beautiful coastal bush tracks

A retired couple wandered along while we were doing some boxing drills, every now and then they were squirrelling around in the bush. This is where I should note that if you are doing a boxing drill with your other half you should be paying attention - not being a nosy parker about what everyone else is doing! Random right hooks are likely to connect with more than a boxing pad!

Anyway, it turns out they were hiding rocks. Okay, this may sem a little bit strange to be hiding rocks in the middle of the bush. Of course, these were no ordinary rocks. On closer inspection, they were painted with some gorgeous artwork! There was a facebook page on the back, asking the finder of the rocks to take a photo and post to a facebook group!

Naturally, this was something I needed to investigate further! And that is when I discovered "NSW Rocks"

So what exactly is NSW Rocks?

Well, it's a statewide group that brings communities together by Painting Rocks and bascially playing Hide N Seek with them! They love to share their creativbity and make people feel happy when they find randomly an amazing treasure.

Rocks have pictures, quotes, messages - anything the painter feels inspired to create.

You can participate by painting and then hiding rocks. You simply post on the Facebook Page where and when you are doing a Rock Drop. On the back, you paint the facebook page and your postcode so it can be tracked how far the rocks travel when people "re-drop" them or find them on holidays.

If you are a rock seeker, when you find a rock you snap a pic and post it to the facebook page. You can keep the rock - leave it for someone else to find or re-drop it sometime in the future

I love this idea because it encourages people - and kids especially to get out in nature and start searching for these hidden treasures. Not only that, while searching for rocks you become more observant - actually taking in your surroundings, so you see so much more of natures beauty - because you are paying attention. And anything that gets kids out from behind a screen for at least part of the day has to be a good thing!

But it turns out that this is a project way bigger than this facebook group in NSW! A quick search uncovered "The Kindness Rock Project", which is a global movement.

Here are the origins of this amazing project.

So today I actually found 4 rocks - I left most of them there for others to find only keeping hold of my favourite (the Toadstool), which I may re-drop sometime in the future.

When we finally get through all the adoption hoohah and Miss Two comes along this is something @cryptoandzen and I will be excited to share with her, both from a painting and hiding and a seeking point of view. Creativity, play and nature - all things that will be important in our journey, plus instilling a sense of bringing kindness and happiness to others.

I'm glad to see this is something that has taken off - Each State in Australia has its own group but over 128K people are involved across the country.

So next time you are out and about in a park or on a bushwalk, just take a closer look around you, in the fork of a tree, under a leaf, on a park bench or picnic table. You never know when you might come across one of these beautifully painted rocks.

Til the next adventure - Steem on with Love and Light

Location	"Bateau Bay, NSW, Australia"
Camera	Samsung Galaxy S9
Editing	PicLab

My beautiful UpCats were designed by the one and only beautiful @ryivhnn and are based on my beautiful Ava the Princess Cat

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