thoughtful things

I’ve always believed the best gifts are things we would want but would­n’t buy our­selves cause we could­n’t jus­ti­fy the pur­chase (regard­less of how much it costs), or some­thing hand­made by the giv­er. Good gifts also hap­pen just because, not nec­es­sar­i­ly due to a birth­day or hol­i­day. Lisa says this ide­al makes me an intim­i­dat­ing gift-giv­er. ____ used to call me a pro­fes­sion­al con­sumer, cause I have a ten­den­cy to pur­chase what I want with­out hes­i­ta­tion, which I imag­ine makes me even hard­er to shop for.

Recently, peo­ple have been giv­ing me awe­some things for absolute­ly no rea­son at all, and each gift is thought­ful, prac­ti­cal, and just my taste. It must be real­ly hard to find presents that will make me hap­py, but that just makes them all the more spe­cial when they do.

cat stuff

These were in my mail­box one night. The event was actu­al­ly a strip-spelling com­pe­ti­tion, and Shawn won “best strip­per”, the reward being the CD of cat purring. The oth­er guy won the “best speller” award and got the book. They had to fol­low him out of the cafe and ask him for it, cause it was total­ly meant for me obvi­ous­ly. Shawn has said I’m a cat for as long as I’ve known him.

double wall mini tea cups

I had tea with Heather G in a cafe last win­ter, and we had a con­ver­sa­tion about design and how sat­is­fy­ing it felt to hold these mini teacups. Somehow, she remem­bered and found them and bought me a set. They’re mouth-blown so each one is unique, and insu­lat­ed by dou­ble-wall borosil­i­cate glass.

book safe

Lisa got me this book safe, made out of an edi­tion of Ernest Hemingway’s Selected Letters, for secrets big and small. The choice of what book to use in mak­ing a book safe is very impor­tant, as it has to blend in with a library col­lec­tion, but also not be so recent or inter­est­ing as to make some­one pick­ing it up.

It has lit­tle mag­nets embed­ded in the frame and cov­er to make sure it stays closed even when stored ver­ti­cal. This lit­tle detail was what swayed her deci­sion to go with this par­tic­u­lar crafter, and some­thing you learn is very impor­tant if you ever try to keep your stash hid­den from…uhhh…cats.

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