Happy Valentine’s Day! 💗

Posted on February 14, 2024 by Mike Nelson Pedde — Leave a reply

Hi Folks:

This image shows the latest chalk art drawing on the sidewalk in front of our house. At the top, all Caps, are the words HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY written in an arc in yellow chalk. The main body of the drawing consists of two large intertwining hearts, outlined in pink, red and white. At the bottom, in blue and purple, it reads HUG HERE. Today is Valentine’s Day, an international excuse to be more loving to each other (not that we need one) and a reason to eat good chocolate (not that we need one!) We always think sharing hugs with loved one is a good idea, so we wanted to encourage others to join in the celebration!

NB: While Mike was drawing with chalk, Marcia was scampering around the neighbourhood leaving anonymous valentines in our local Little Library boxes … 🤫

Hugs,
M&M

P.S. We’re in the middle of Random Acts of Kindness week. What are you doing to be kind today? Remember to be kind to yourself as well as others!!

P.S. II, the sequel: Apparently in the 17th century it was customary for young gentlemen to write the name of their betrothed on their shirt cuff for Valentine’s Day – hence wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve.

Happy World Postcard Day!!

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Mike Nelson Pedde — Leave a reply

Hi Folks:

According to the folks at Postcrossing.com, today (October 1, 2023) is World Postcard Day! The theme for this year is, “Sharing Postal Hugs”. We always think sharing hugs with loved one is a good idea, so we wanted to encourage others to join in the celebration!

Send a postcard (and hugs) to those you love today!!

Hugs,
M&M

Penrose Tiling

Posted on September 22, 2023 by Mike Nelson Pedde — Leave a reply

Hi Folks:

This image shows our most recent Hug Zone chalk art drawing. The idea was independently created by the mathematician Roger Penrose. It’s a form of aperiodic tiling, and the idea has been around for millenia. For more on that, see here: Continue Reading →

G M Originals!!

Posted on August 25, 2023 by Mike Nelson Pedde — Leave a reply

Hi Folks:

At the end of July we had one of our grandsons come for a visit, and we did our best to squire him around town and visit/revisit some of the highlights Victoria has to offer. Of course we had to involve him with creating new chalk art patterns, to which he willingly acquiesced. Here then are the world’s first G M hugging spot originals!

First, in front of our house:
Because every cloudy sky needs a rainbow. The shadow is from a street sign, but if it looks to you like a bunny jumping up into the rainbow, that’s okay too!

Evidence of people carrying our rainbow with them – even if it’s only on the bottoms of their shoes!

A few days later we went downtown to our old hugging spot at the Homecoming Memorial and we created Hugscotch 2.0!

It works! (as evidenced by Marcia and grandson). We were even lucky enough to see spontaneous hugging taking place before we left! We applauded, of course. 🙂

Remember to hug the ones you love today! We trust G. will put to good use the box of sidewalk chalk that arrived at his house before he returned home. 🤗

Hugs,
M&M

Receiving (More) Kindness!

Posted on August 20, 2023 by Mike Nelson Pedde — 2 Comments ↓

Hi Folks:

A year ago we posted a blog post titled, “Receiving Kindness“, where we wrote about two gifts we had received in exchange for our ongoing hugging spot chalk art project. The first was a beautiful painted stone someone left on top of our gate, and the second was a lovely note someone taped to the inside of our gate.

Our last blog post (A Smile from Niklas) profiled a smile rock we received from someone named Niklas, left on top of our gate, and this has since been followed by another lovely note! We found it after setting out our BE A HUGGING STAR design; the note looks like this: Continue Reading →

Happy Father’s Day!!

Posted on June 18, 2023 by Mike Nelson Pedde — Leave a reply

Hi Folks:

All of Marcia and Mike’s parents are gone now, but we have two sons and a son-in-law and five beautiful grandchildren. We are Grandy and Grandalf! 🧙‍♀️&🧙‍♂️

As with those who are moms, Happy Father’s Day today to all of the strong, loving men who are fathers, to those who are chosen dads, surrogate dads, step-dads, adoptive dads, and to the women who are also dads.

Special thanks to all those who love and support them.

Hugs,
M&M

Happy Mother’s Day!!

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Mike Nelson Pedde — 4 Comments ↓

Happy Mother’s Day today to all of the strong, beautiful women who are mothers, to those who are chosen moms, surrogate moms, step-moms, adoptive moms, and to the men who are also mothers.

Special thanks to all those who love and support them.

Hugs,
M&M

2023 Hug Zones

Posted on March 28, 2023 by Mike Nelson Pedde — 2 Comments ↓

Anyone else needing a nice warm hug? As explained in our We Have Huggers!! post in May last year, we came across a short video on Instagram showing someone who had created a Free Hugs zone in sidewalk chalk outside their house – and the various people who had taken advantage of the situation. Always willing to contribute to more acts of kindness, we created our own first attempt. We were so inspired by the effect that we created 11 different hug zone patterns in 2022 (12, if you include the one we created at our old Free Hugs spot at the Homecoming Memorial at Ship Point). Continue Reading →

We Have Huggers!!

Posted on May 21, 2022 by Mike Nelson Pedde — 2 Comments ↓

Hi Folks:

If you follow our blog you’ll know that for some 11 years we took our FREE HUGS posters to downtown Victoria and shared hugs with thousands of locals and visitors from (at least) 88 countries. Sadly, we had to quit in March 2020, and we have yet to return. Someday… In the interim we continue to give out Hug Certificates and we have sent out a smattering of Free Hugs postcards. We also continue to share hugs with loved ones where we can… but yesterday we tried something new…

Continue Reading →