Day 11 -- Heading home

So, tonight I head home for the next few days to spend time with the family for Christmas.

Got a big gift this morning with news that my dad is considered in remission now. Of course, we're not out of the woods and he'll have some more chemo. But this is really, really good news and means he's responding to the treatments. Not sure all the details, but that's a pretty good gift this holiday.

Yesterday I realized how powerful the universe is. I've been anticipating, maybe dreading is the word, that some day when I got home there would be some of my stuff that I left at Ben's waiting for me on my doorstep. And yesterday was that day. I was a little shocked and really disappointed when I realized that he didn't even leave the slightest note -- I wasn't expecting one but I can tell you I feel like I deserve a little better than this cold treatment I've gotten from him given the extent of our relationship. Anyway ... I"m not going to dwell on it. But I'm writing about it to point out that as I was getting this sad blow to my heart, I also received a gift from the universe. It wasn't just my stuff left for me ... I had three gifts sitting on my stoop as well, dropped off from friends I didn't expect. It was perfect timing. Ben couldn't have brought the stuff on a better day for me ...

Anyway ... today's gift giving goes to my little friends. I love kids. And I have been thinking about kids and how I don't have any a lot lately. Sometimes it makes me sad. But then I have to remind myself that I have lots of children in my life. I'm lucky that I have three little friends in town -- children of co-workers -- that let me hang out with them. So, today I delivered presents to Lucy and Israel's parents so they will have a little gift from me. Elise will get hers when we hang out next weekend.

I also haven't always been so good about setting an intention for my giving for each day, which is something the 29 Gifts folks suggest you do. But feeling kind of glum this morning, I decided that today's intention is "Today I give with hope." I think I need to stay connected to my hope these days.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to blog while I'm home ... but I'll be saving up my stories for next week if I can't get on the computer. Rest assured ... I'm going to keep giving.

Also -- Kat "thiefer face" Gallagher and I were talking last night and she's liking this idea of the 29 Gifts. But she wants to do something a little different. So, she's planning a new thing that I kind of like too. She's calling it 52 weeks of letters -- an exercise in sending good, old-fashioned snail mail to people. She wants to do a different person each week. I think this is a good idea too so I'm contemplating adding it to my list of goals for 2010. I'm going try to come up with a list of people that I'd like to write to and see where it goes. I'm not sure I want to do 52 different people, but that might be an interesting part of the challenge. Anyone else interested in seeing if we could do this?