29 Day Gift Challenge - Day 2

Today, I gave something special to my girlie and her friend to use. I have had a little girl's tea set for years. It's a little "Hollie Hobby" thing, with four cups, four saucers, etc. And Buttercup is finally old enough to use it, I think. So when she asked if she and her friend could have a tea party, I pulled it out and it is hers now. I set up a nice little tray for the girls, with carrots, graham crackers, four little sweet pieces and four banana chunks. We put it on a special tray that was given to her before we moved from Maryland. She had a great time and I loved seeing something that I enjoyed once-upon-a-time being loved that way again. That was my first gift yesterday.

But the funny thing about giving gifts is that a) the more you give, the more you find new ways to give, and b) the  more others end up blessing you.
So at the end of the day, I was able to give another gift to a dog named Gracie and her owner.

As I was putting Buttercup down for the night - early because of a late night before! - Chef came into the room to tell me there was a strange dog in the front yard. What??

Isn't She Cute?

To shorten things, I went to check and the dog was a big black lab, or lab mix. She was very friendly and had a collar on, with a rabies tag, which worried Bruiser for a bit. He thought it meant that the dog had rabies. It took us a while to get him to understand that it was a preventative thing. But she had nothing to tell where she had come from. So we fed her and gave her a bit of food and posted her information onto Facebook. We had a response within an hour. So my gift was to take care of her, and return her back to the family that claims her as their own and loves her. And though it was something I would do regardless of the 29 Gifts challenge, I am counting it, because without our post to Facebook, the owner didn't even know she was gone!

I was the beneficiary of a few gifts yesterday too, though she may - or may not - have thought of it as a gift herself. First, a wonderful person that I've met down here named Zina runs a farm and does food shares each year. I had mentioned to her that I bake bread and she called me, out of the blue, to ask if I would make some she can try. If she liked it, she was going to offer my bread for sale with her Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets that she sold to her customers. So I baked several loaves of different kinds - Cinnamon Swirl, Molasses and a Country loaf and some dinner rolls - and she came by. She loved them! (Yay!) and put them on Facebook to her customers to offer them for sale. So within less than two hours I had three orders. I'm very excited about having a way to earn a little extra money for Christmas.

This is also extra helpful because last week the rear glass in our car shattered. Maestro closed it and there was a sort of *pop* sound, and all of a sudden there was glass everywhere. Yikes! So other money that I would have spent for gifts for Christmas now has to go to fixing the glass. I haven't driven it since it happened. Another friend loaned me her car to go get groceries  on the first day that I read the challenge to the boys.

And the other gift I received yesterday may not seem like a gift, but it was. Remember the sleepover the kids were having? (The gift on day 1?) Well, Little Miss Buttercup stayed up watching movies with the big boys - I thought for sure she had fallen asleep, but I was wrong. When I found that out, I knew there would be some difficult moments today. Tired bodies have a hard time maintaining control! So it hit her hard last night around dinner time. I fed her, and took her straight upstairs where she blessed me - she kicked, hit, screamed and screamed some more. I can see you asking Where is the gift in all this? The gift is this: I had the opportunity then to show my little girl how we should act when someone is not behaving. And I kept my own temper in check even. And I was reminded of how *I* need to treat others when I am tired and not on my best. It is a gift to be reminded of that.