As the Memorial Day weekend approached, I looked forward to some downtime, something hubby, Tim, emphasized we both needed.

We made plans to hide out at our little cottage where we serve as club treasurers and were expected to attend the annual spring meeting. The few hours out for the meeting would still leave plenty of time to work on some craft projects I'd sidelined. For one, I'd bought this cute little 3-D book/music room kit designed to sit on a shelf between my books. I'd been anxiously awaiting Tim's golf night to get it started, but due to weather and other circumstances, three weeks later, I still hadn't found the time. This holiday weekend I would—I hoped.

"Nothing is lost in the mind of God," is a phrase I first read in a Doreen Virtue book many years ago. (My copy is dated 1999, but it may have been later for me.) She told a story about losing a small change purse on a family outing. Her family were Christian Scientists, and they taught her, "Nothing is ever lost, God always knows where it is." As I remember it, home after a family outing, she realized she'd lost the purse. Finding it by her bedside the next morning, she forever accepted that belief. (Doreen tells the story much more eloquently. You can read it in The Lightworker's Way.)

I think the story stuck in the back of my mind, but I didn't think of it for some years until I lost my favorite watch. The watch was nothing special, just a little Timex, but I wore it almost daily. The weird thing was that I didn't know when or where I lost it, thus, I had no idea where to look for it. My husband, Tim, offered to buy me a new one, but I had other watches, so I said, no. But, because Doreen had shared, 'nothing is ever lost,' I told him, "it will turn up at some point."

At some point in the 1990s, my husband convinced me to enroll in the Dale Carnegie Training Course that he had taken some years before. "It will boost your confidence," he said, though I suspect he also knew the 12-week training would benefit me in other ways as well.

For those of you who don't know, this is a course where each week you learn a concept on which you must speak for 2-3 minutes in front of the class the following week. You also learn other skills like how to start a conversation, how to remember names, and other means in which to engage in friendly conversation. While usually business-minded individuals sign up for the training, the learned skills also benefit its trainees in daily and family life as well.

 Early in February, sick as a dog, confined to my bed, I became keenly aware of the overwhelming glut of stuff I owned, much of which I could see from where I lay. I made a promise to myself to lighten the load as soon as I was able. I didn't know it would take more than a month to be well enough to do so.

Gradually, I began by going through a drawer here or a cupboard there and really taking a hard look at what I might be holding on to. Did I really need a 1950s electric china teapot, which my husband pointed out, I had never used in some 30 years of owning it—I just thought it was pretty. . . pretty enough to keep out of sight in an unreachable upper cupboard. Yeah, time to release that to someone who would appreciate it, chips and all.

Back in January, I got my latest edition of Nicole Cody's beautiful Journeymaker's Planner/Journal. Each new year, I sit down, write out my goals/hopes/and wishes for the New Year along with the help of Nicole's planning tools and inspirational spiritual insights. Besides the monthly "running lists" of things hoped to be accomplished, the hardbound, spiral book offers additional encouragement. Each week/month/and quarter, the user pulls two oracle cards to spur the soul and to also offer guidance for the coming days. There are spaces in each week/month for gratitude, self-care ("lucky dips"), your weekly focus, crystal of the month, daily musings, and more. For the past several years, I've relied on Nicole's wonderfully illustrated guide to spur me forward throughout the year. 

This January, I proposed to myself that I would write four more of my little Marvelous Message books, bringing me to a total of seven of the twelve planned. They were to be Marvelous Messages from the Heart, Marvelous Messages from Your Ancestry, (and its companion card deck), Marvelous Messages from Your Spirit, and Marvelous Messages from Your Weight. According to my well-laid-out plans, I would have three months to write and market each (leaving the last of the four to launch in January, 2025). I simply had to write a few pages each week. How hard could that be? Easy-peasy. 

During gift-giving times in our home, we often refer to "the box ripper." This is not a person.

A box ripper is when you start to casually open a gift and suddenly realize that beyond your wildest expectations someone bought you that special thing you really wanted. All you have to do is just get the box open, and it's yours. (A famous one in our house is a Christmas gift I once received of a full-length coat with lamb's wool collar and cuffs.) The subsequent excitement may lead to rapidly torn paper, shrieking, fast-talking, many big grins—and hugs. Lots and lots of hugs.

Of course, our family has acknowledged that finding, affording, and buying said box ripper—every time someone gives a gift—is not always possible or feasible, which may be why those types of gifts are so very exciting.

Sadly, many of our family gifts these days come in the form of 2x3 plastic cards with a store logo on them. Not my idea of a box ripper, though sometimes more appreciated than a size-too-small sweater or a tchotchke designed to sit on a shelf. I still always try to give at least one non-gift card item for each family member to open. It just doesn't seem right to only exchange pieces of plastic, no matter what their monetary value.