35 Gifts: Days 3 and 4

Yesterday was day 3. I had a very low-energy day. I worked towards giving several gifts:

• I registered with United Prosperity in preparation for giving money to them.


• I worked on several keyrings like the ones I made for Christmas, I finished two today and will be making more. I plan to give them to the local supported accomodation homes to give to residents on special occasions like birthdays. I gave ten keychains this way before Christmas and got very good feedback that they were loved and much appreciated, so I'm going to give more. I like making them, anyway, and I am going to run out of friends who want them soon! They make great bag identifiers and zipper pulls as well as keyrings, so they have lots of disability use. Come to think of it, local aged care homes may like them too - I'll make enquiries.


• I worked on origami hearts which are going to decorate cards. I'm going to make up small celophane bags and ask the assistant who does my shopping to leave them around as she shops. Inside each bag will be a card with an origami heart on the front and a $5 note stapled inside. I'll write something to the effect of "Give yourself a gift - buy your favourite drink, sit down somewhere quiet, and just do nothing for a little while you drink it." I think I might put in small writing on the back a note like "This card is part of a 29 gifts project. For more information go to http://29gifts.com/" in case people are curious.

The gifts I gave on day 3 were very small things. My instinct is not to mention them, but part of the challenge is to see things as gifts even when they seem insignificant:

• I gave myself the gift of peace and quiet by doing nothing for the hour between when I woke up and when my carer arrived. Usually I'd turn on the computer fairly soon after I woke up and I'd check email and work on my blogs, but I just rested and cuddled the cat and thought about gifts and listened to the birds sing. It was peaceful and nice and I think I'll do it again.


• I gave specific compliments to several people, although now I'm writing this I can't remember who or what.


• I spent a significant amount of the day stressing that I hadn't given a gift, but eventually got my insides sorted out and realised that I'm sick and that I'd worked towards several larger gifts (as I wrote above) and done small things so I gave myself the gift of gentleness and stopped kicking myself about it. I think this was important!

Today was day 4 and I was even sicker. I actually thought I'd missed taking the second magic mitodrine dose this morning because my resting pulse rate was about 20 beats above normal with-mitodrine levels, but it's been the same all evening with both pulse and feeling like a truck hit me. The pulse rate isn't signifying an infection or anything, it's just a good way of monitoring my overall health - the sicker I am, the higher my resting pulse rate is. Either I'm having a delayed reaction to doing so much over Christmas or I have some sort of infection/virus, but I feel reallllly crappy with very low energy and muddled thinking and feeling cold and needing to sleep and not feeling hungry and general "flu like symptoms" stuff. I gave myself a "free pass" early this morning not to work on the gifts, although hoping I could at least get the donation gift done. That turned out not to happen but some other things did.

I worked on planning my middle brother's engagement present. I'm not telling here what it is as the middle brother is net.savvy (he works for Firemint, the place that made Flight Control. If you happen to be an iPhone/iPod Touch user you'll probably know it!) but I can tell you it's a homemade Ricky Special(TM) and I'll make sure to take pictures before I give it away and I'll post them here once he's received it! Planning was mostly mental, picturing what I want to make and how it could go together, plus asking some people to grab things I need for construction. I'm excited about this because it's a fun thing.

I left my computer off this morning the same way I did yesterday morning. I really like having a slow and lazy start to the day (who wouldn't?!) although it does feel a little cut-off and lonely at times. It also felt decadent in a way though - interestingly conflicted feelings about that.

Aside from thinking, I don't think I worked on any physical gifts today. I gave (and therefore received!) extra hugs and thanks to people, and extra cat cuddles because they're theraputic, but I wasn't up to anything more. I guess my biggest gift was freeing myself from feeling pressure/worry about gifting for this patch while I'm extra sick. Hopefully I'll feel well in a day or two.

Hugs,
Ricky