A very thoughtful gift idea

My best friend gave me a really great gift for Christmas this year and I thought doing something similar would be a really nice and thoughtful gift.

She typed up her family’s secret spaghetti sauce recipe and included some of the ingredients in a box. We’ve known each other since our freshman year of college, and I am so honored that her family allowed her to share the recipe with me.

She also printed out some pictures from our Italy trip and put them in photo coasters and also threw in a colosseum ornament.

Since I have been lucky enough to go on several trips with friends and family, I am definitely going to keep this idea in my back pocket.

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Here’s the thing

Christmas was great. I have a half started post all about it.

I’m tremendously enjoying being off from work. And will continue to do so for a few more days.

But here’s the thing.

I’m having a hard time getting up my motivation to sit down and write blog posts right now.

Not that I’m all that regular in posting usually, but I sort of anticipated in my free time I’d sit down and finish up telling you about my Italy trip. And start to tell you about some of the fun things I got for Christmas. And about how I spent my time off from work.

But instead, what I have done is spent several mornings staying in bed until after 10:30, just enjoying the coolness of my blankets, and the fact that I had absolutely nothing planned for the day. Spent countless hours watching Netflix. And when I’m not watching Netflix, I’m helping my husband figure out how to kill a giants and lighten his laod on Skyrim. I’ve also spent many hours playing with my new Kindle. And reading an actual, physical book. (No reading books on my Kindle just yet.) I’ve spent some family time. And some in-law time. And a little too little friend time. But thank goodness for friend time via text message and twitter.

It’s been a great break so far and I’m going to try to milk the final days.

In the meantime, maybe I’ll get to those posts I hoped to write. But if not, I’ll see you in the new year.

 

 

 

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Crappy day present exchange

The coolest thing about blogging is that there is an instant community you can become a part of. This is a story about why blogging is so awesome.

A few weeks ago, I was having a crappy day. I don’t even remember what had me down, but I remembered reading about Crappy Day Presents. (Crappy Day presents are little presents that you get from a friend and save to open when you’re having a crappy day.)

So I asked my Twitter friends if anyone wanted to do an exchange. But, the lovely lady behind Doing My Best had already proposed the very same thing a little earlier in the day. (She’s really the mastermind behind the whole Crappy Day Present movement!) So I signed right up, and started thinking of gifts to send to someone else, in hopes of making their day brighter.

And yesterday, when I got home from work, I found a key in my mailbox. That meant there was a package waiting for me. I didn’t think I was waiting for anything else in the mail, so I started getting excited. After several attempts at trying to put the key in the wrong lock, I opened one of the large mailboxes and there it was, my Crappy Day Present!

As soon as I got in the door of the apartment, I grabbed the scissors and opened the box to find this!!

I was so excited!

And since I’ve had a sore throat all week, been sleeping horribly (propped up on 2 pillows, granny style), and woken up that morning all congested, which made me have to breathe out of my mouth all day, I decided it was ok for me to open one of the presents. I opened one that had a little hole in the wrapping paper to discover some cute nail files and some lemon drop salt scrub. (I would have been trying to peep at what was inside anyway!)

I ran myself a hot bath and used the salt scrub right away.

Thank you so much to Carmen for my lovely gifts. I can’t wait to open the rest! Not that I love crappy days, but at least I know I have something to look forward to when those days come around.

Also, thanks again to Doing My Best for organizing the exchange. It was so much fun to participate.

And just in case you were wondering, here’s what I sent to my person in the exchange. I can’t tell you what everything is, because I don’t want to give anything away to the recipient (or anyone I might send a Crappy Day Present to in the future!) but I had a really fun time gathering the gifts.

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