Wishing Wells, Wishing Stars and Some Genies in Bottles

(Image via here)

Maybe it's the imminent Christmas season, maybe it's my pending birthday, or maybe it's my friend Corey Kate who recently visited us and brought me a gift just for having her...



This cute candy dish in our collegiate colors and



These soy candles which emit fragrances reminiscent of our beloved college campus: Auburn University.

(If you're an Auburn fan, you might need these. Find them here.)

But regardless of the reason, I have had gifts and all their glorious wrappings and philosophies and those who I wish to receive them in mind.

My wish for the next shooting star: an unlimited gift fund, please.

A friend recently got into nursing school: I want to give her monogrammed scrubs

A friend recently got a new job: I want to give her an adorable on-the-run coffee mug

A friend recently had a baby: I want to give them the whole collection of illustrated A.A. Milne and Robert Louis Stevenson

An old student is headed off to college: I want to send her some cooking classes she can take with a friend.

A friend just graduated law school: I want to send her a fine leather briefcase.


So, as you well see, I am going to need an unlimited gift fund for all this...

or a new plan.

So, there's the gift of nature:

Pleasure is spread through the earth in stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find.

~Wordsworth

But I can hardly give nature-- although I did send a friend in Afghanistan a box of Fall leaves a few years ago.


Here's one solution:
My mother keeps a "gift closet" stocked. She just has some shelves in a closet where she stores things she finds at random. They are all inexpensive yet unique little items, and she buys them as she sees them. That way, when an occasion arises, she goes to her gift closet to shop first. If she finds nothing there, then she goes on to shop elsewhere. I used to roll my eyes at this, but now I see that it's rather clever... and I've begun my own little gift closet...

Until the next shooting star when I can wish for an unlimited gift fund...
because that works, right?



You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet