Gifts

I'm mad at myself for slacking off on blogging this week, because there have been several things I meant to write about that I can't remember now. This is how things become permanently forgotten!

Today Matt's dad helped me check off No. 9 in my 101-things list by giving us these two beautiful stained-glass windows!
I absolutely love them. He actually had several and he offered us our pick, and Matt and I agreed that these were our favorites. I think he meant for us to take just one, but he generously let us have both of them.

They'll be perfect in our next house, in downtown Aberdeen. I'd love to figure out a way to have one of them put into the front door. That might be impossible if it's code for exterior doors to be steel-packed, which I think it is, but they'll be great wherever they go.

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Speaking of things that I forgot to blog about and of my 101-things list, last Christmas Matt gave me an awesome present. He is a wonderful, thoughtful gift-giver. The first birthday gift he ever gave me, back in 1996, was a plush robe and a shower radio, which just goes to show how well he already knew me. (The radio died before too long, but I wore that robe until after we were married.)

One Christmas he rounded up gently used copies of every Anne Lamott book for me. Another year he gave me a huge gift card to my then-favorite store, Express, which might sound generic but was meant to counteract my cheapness. (It worked: I bought everything I wanted from there, guilt-free, for, like, two years.)

In 2009, his Christmas gift to me was a big three-ring binder titled "List Help." It was filled with tabs like "Wilkes," our street name (which consisted of a satellite image of our street labeled with the neighbors' names -- No. 7); "Times table" (the 12s -- No. 98); "Maps" (nine pages of detailed maps from WorldAtlas.com -- Nos. 81 and 82); and "James" (the full text of the book of the Bible -- No. 2).

He also arranged to borrow a video camera to document our personal property for the insurance company (No. 85), promised to convert our wedding video to DVD (No. 32), and gave me a gift certificate for an hour-long massage (No. 39). The total package was fantastic. And now it's part of the permanent record.