Madelyn Collins's Page

This morning I met someone I knew through school and have an email correspondance with, but hadn't met in person as she lives in a different state. She's on vacation now near where I live so we arranged to meet for coffee at a bookshop. I'd decided I'd buy her coffee for her - not a big gift, but a gift. She was surprised and appreciative and it didn't feel like much to me. It was the first gift I'd preplanned (before starting this, I thought I'd preplan many of the gifts).

Leaving…

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My daughter came downstairs today wearing one of my shirts. "I hope you don't mind if I wear this today," she said. I first thought to just say, "No, of course not." Then I looked at her and saw how beautiful she looked in the shirt. "It's yours," I said. I have three like that - I told her to just take them and enjoy them. This is really fun!

My son and I each had gift certificates to a local book shop. He chose a book but his gift card didn't cover the price. He asked to borrow the money to pay the difference. In that moment I knew what today's gift would be: I handed him my gift card and told him that I wouldn't lend him the money, I'd cover the difference.

It's Valentine's Day so it was a day of giving even without having taken on this challenge. I won't list what I gave my husband and kids as I'd have given to them anyway. But, I called one of my aunts. My aunts like phone calls and I'm a terrible phone correspondent. The odd thing was, I had been thinking about my aunt all afternoon. Late in the day, I listened to my answering machine messages and there were two from her that I hadn't gotten (someone else had listened to them but not passed… Continue