Day 9 - ❦ Seize the moment

Day 9

The Gift(s): Homemade Chai tea to office; assorted shampoo and soap to SEMCAC for homeless people; a wonderful lunch for a friend; a cash donation to the Austin Public Library.

Today the giving opportunities just kept revealing themselves and by the end of the day I was laughing because I had struggled to think of giving opportunities earlier in the day. So many giving lessons today.

As I left for work in the morning I settled on bringing some delicious homemade Chai tea with me to share with my co-workers. Now this may seem like a small gesture, but it is something I very rarely do despite the fact that I love to cook, am a good cook, and often have great left-overs. It is a part of me that I have held close to myself at work, not wanting to mix one of my great stress relievers with work. Actually, while the people I work with are all very nice, their taste buds are at opposite ends of my cooking spectrum and most of what I cook painfully  challenges their idea of food. I thought it would be fun to give them something that was really really good. I set the tea on the common table with a sign that said, “homemade Chai tea - enjoy” - and they did. To my delight those who were willing to try it liked it. Giving opportunity checked off.

When I got home the cleaning spirit hit me and I went after a closet with gusto. As I tossed and sorted I realized that I had a huge stash of assorted soaps and shampoos that I have collected on my travels. I make it a habit when I stay in a hotel to take the toiletry supplies daily and bring them home. Having paid for them in my room fee, I like to collect them and donate them to the homeless shelter at the end of the year. You would be surprised at how quickly you can accumulate a big bag full and the supplies are much needed at homeless shelters. When I finished cleaning I had a shopping bag full of soaps and took it right away to the homeless shelter - who gratefully accepted it and began distributing the supplies that day.

Normally, I would not include a lunch of left-overs as a giving opportunity, but this one was so much fun that I just needed to include it here. The night before, I hosted my Girl’s Group which is a glorified book club with the motto - “We Read To Eat”. There is much debate about which comes first, the title of the book or the choice of menus. We pick a book to read based on the food that thematically fits the story and we all love to cook. Books like “Lobster Chronicles” (lobster and New England seafood menu), “Under the Tuscan Sun” (traditional Italian menu), and “Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons” (Minnesota hot dish and chocolate menu) have all been hits. Often we never even get around to discussing the book but always enjoy the meal. Last night we read “The Life of Pi” and enjoyed a fourteen dish taste of India. Yummmm, yummmm. I had Malabar coconut shrimp, Balti butter chicken, dahl, raita, spicy tomato and spinach, jasmine rice pudding,  and mint and cilantro chutney just sitting in my fridge.

I was working in my office in my home when a friend stopped by to drop an envelop off. As we were talking, he commented that his wife (a member of my Girl’s Group) had shared the menu with him when she got home last night and he was salivated just thinking about the food that we must have enjoyed. I invited him to enjoy it for himself and starting pulling leftovers out of the fridge, before he knew it all fourteen dishes were warmed and ready to eat. Unlike my co-workers, this friend always, and I mean always, eats whatever I cook with absolute appreciation. We sat for hours and ate and talked and delighted in this giving opportunity. Since this was my first day of scaled back work hours, I could take the time to sit for hours and was grateful for that.

My final giving opportunity of the day was entirely unintentional although it required my direction. In preparation for my trip to Togo, I had borrowed “Easy to Learn French” tapes from the Austin Public Library. Before I left, I returned all of my pre-trip planning materials and left for Africa unencumbered. When I returned I was not happy to see a late notice waiting for me in the mail for the tapes I had returned. After weeks of trying to correct this with the library staff I got a final invoice requesting payment for the missing item. It sat in my bills to be paid basket for weeks while I checked out materials on my husband’s card since I was “delinquent”. In a final burst of desperation, I wrote a check to the library and sent it with my late notice with a letter stating again that I had already returned the item but wanted to clear my account.

You can imagine my surprise when I received a call from the Library staff that evening telling me that when they got my letter with the notice they looked one more time on the shelves for the tapes and they were there. They removed all of my fines and re-issued me a new library card. Then she asked me what she should do with my check. Since I had already deducted it from my check register and had written off the money, it just felt so much better to turn the negative energy associated with a fine into a positive giving experience and I told her to consider it a donation. Whew - that felt great!

❦ Seize the moment that strikes you to give.