Day 22 ❦ Unexpected gifts are fun to give.

Day 22

The Gift: A box of frozen popsicles

I spent the morning last weekend cleaning the obscure parts of my house and started with the freezer. We moved into this house fourteen years ago and bought the refrigerator new when we moved in - that was probably the last time it was clean. So as I sorted through ancient boxes of ice cream all with one last spoonful of something that resembled white at some time in it and unidentifiable frosted over meat (I think) and tubs of red stuff - that I am sure was the best chili or spaghetti sauce I had ever made - I was surprised to see tucked away in the back bottom corner a new, and unopened box of freezees - all colors intact. Usually I find a box filled with picked over purple ones and throw them away. Despite my delight in finding the hidden treasure, freezees just don’t fit into the Dr. Phil lifestyle so I tried to throw them away and just couldn’t make myself do it.

I took them out of the box and neatly tucked them away under the ice cube trays thinking that there will be some reason to bring them out (but I just couldn't imagine when that would be) - until tonight...

This summer has been unseasonably cold and most evenings have found us tucked under heaps of blankets usually reserved for crisp fall days. I am sure that the ice cream stands are suffering, but the rain has been beneficial in returning the water table levels to healthy levels. Despite the cold weather this has also been a bumper year for mosquitoes. Now I know that Minnesota is known for its mosquito, and rightfully so, however, these mosquitoes are killer mosquitoes - or can’t be killed mosquitoes. Even after the city sprayed twice to eradicate these pesky bugs, the swarms were so think - no one has been outside. I use the mosquito repellent I took to Africa (one hundred percent DEET) and even this does not deter them. Because of all of these factors, people just have not been outside, kids have not been outside playing, yelling, screaming and I have resorted to bringing my daily workouts into the gym.

Today was a very busy day for me and as the evening came on me, I realized that I had not yet found a giving opportunity. Yikes, I do not want to encounter giving burn-out, and need to stick to my daily giving or the exercise is all for naught. Discipline - that is one thing I would like to see myself accomplish in this, discipline, bringing it home. But that did not relieve the fact that I had not been open to a giving opportunity yet and it was seven thirty at night.

As I was pulling into my driveway on finally - the hottest day of the summer - topping off at eighty six degrees - I almost missed my driveway because I was watching five or six kids playing out in the field across from my house. There are some great climbing trees there and under the trees stood tangles of bikes and kids playing and yelling. I realized how much I missed that and smiled to see them hanging upside down and just being kids. Maybe summer has finally arrived. At least my giving opportunity has. I marched into the house, bagged up the popsicles and went back out and gave them to the kids. Although they were older than I originally thought, they were all very excited to be given something, spontaneously, by a stranger. As I walked away I heard them negotiating who would get the blue one and who would get the red one. As I reached my back door they yelled out a big thanks and turned to enjoy the treat. This was fun.

❦ Unexpected gifts are fun to give.