Gift Swap Stuff Gotten

Now for my side of the bargain ....

So, there was this way-cool questionnaire for us to fill out to help the secret spoiler have a better sense of how to spoil. Also, we were theoretically supposed to have some theme or something (which I didn't exactly do, unless "Random Collection o'Stuff" counts!), all of which was laid out so perfectly by Marla. As a dutifully obedient little nun, I printed the thing off and carried it around with me, in hopes of concocting beautifully clever and brilliantly descriptive responses. It didn't help that my spoilee had really cool answers of her own, as did the others that I read. So, I had to come up with some pretty cool stuff. Well, with great effort, I managed to come up with some at least semi-decent answers.

Except ....

.... the answers never quite made their way from the printout lurking in my pocket to the Create Post that stared me in the face when I'd sit down at the computer. Once again, ooops. Seems to be a recurring theme with me these days, this "Ooops" word .....

So then I felt doubly-bad. Not only was my spoilee going to have to wait forever to get her stuff from me, but my spoiler wasn't even going to know what to get me. No, for some reason I just couldn't "get around to" explaining which color for me "should only be used in fungal remedy packaging or if human waste were to be redesigned" ... or what exactly it is that makes me "break out in gooberous pustules" (excellent questions, Marla -- I love your way with words!). [Hmmmm, as I look at these questions, I might have to dig out my paper off the pile o'crap on my desk and post them anyway, just as a fun meme .... But, I digress. So, as I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself ....]

True to form for me, this lead to lots of great guilt thoughts. Would my spoiler go through archives, flip through the blog to try to get ideas? Would she just get a random collection o' stuff? Would she decide that if I didn't even wanna post the answers that maybe I didn't really want a part of this thing after all and just not bother? Oh, the trauma. I even got an Anonymous commenter asking about the questions and I still didn't post them. Have I mentioned my slacker side?

Well, the spoiler didn't have as little faith in me as I did, because one day during Christmas break here on the Hill (aka at the Monastery) I had a blue package slip sitting in my mailbox. I went to the package tables and found a package for me from New Mexico. Having somewhat of a brain disconnect, I was thinking "Oh, [this good friend of mine] is from New Mexico. How cool that she sent me a package!" But then I realized .... this can't be from her -- she's been in a monastery in the middle of Nowheresville, Missouri, for four years now. Hmmmmm. Then, I finally got a brain. It was my spoiler stuff. Whooo-hooo. (Not remembering now when I received it ... quite possibly it was before I had even managed to send mine, thus adding to my guilt factor. Regardless, I had a package!)

So, the package sat on the bookshelf in my monastery guest room. Don't know if I really blogged about it, but my pseudo-funk had actually been going on somewhat during the Christmas break, so the package was there but not necessarily thought about. Then, New Year's Eve arrived. We had had community meetings all day long and I had been feeling kinda out of it (I actually left the meetings at one point because I seriously thought I was gonna be sick [just as background because I don't think I've mentioned it -- this is something about which I'm truly phobic. More in a later, grosser post, but still something for you to know]. All the sudden I got really hot (people at my table later told me that I had been really pale and then all the sudden got really really red), so I bolted to go hide on a couch in the community room in hopes of practicing some of Sue's patented Universal Puking Avoidance. Unfortunately, this meant that I missed the more inspiring part of the meetings (we're beginning this whole new "Spirituality Institute" thing that just gets me WAY excited about things), but somehow I managed to settle things out a bit. Still not settled out enough, though, to want to hang too long at the community New Year's Eve party. So, when my novice with pneumonia was ready to head back down the hill, I was more than eager to join her, figuring that I'd probably do better to just crash on the couch in front of a movie. As I was putting on my comfy clothes (awesome new flannel Tigger pjs!) I saw the box on the shelf and realized, "Hey, I can open this now!" So, I took it downstairs with me and did.

Since the spoiler couldn't exactly match things up with the questionnaire (Oops!), she went with a New Mexico-ish theme. Yummy biscoquitos (which, my initial thought, before I made the New Mexico connection, was of my own Italian heritage of biscotti) and gummy jalepeño peppers, three little ornaments (an angel, a winged heart, and Our Lady of Guadalupe), one of those orange-with-cloves things (I'm so articulate with words, though I'm sure there's some official name for them), a red cloth that will probably go in my prayer space (the photo is rather posed and contrived, not really how it looks), and styrafoam peanuts and poppy paper, because what makes a package complete but a variety of packing materials! (I'm writing this from the monastery, trying to see what all's in the pictures that I happen to have .... deepest apologies if I'm forgetting something!). All in all, a nice pleasant diversion (and deliciousity) to a day of not-so-hot (or too-hot) feeling.

Thanks, Sarah .... big-time bonus points for the challenge of having to do this totally out of your own brain. You did good, despite my (non)assistance!

And now, without further ado, the pictures. Remember, I still wasn't feeling too hot that night, so I'm lookin' kinda pale in these pictures. Look around and you get a slight sense of what the Benet Hall parlor looks like as well! And, since the photos are also supposed to show the items in use .... you've also got a little sense of the window at the top of my cave! That, and a very fake and contrived prayer corner/table (since my chair has been inaccessible for a while, it's been my bed lately, and thus the table has kinda fallen into temporary disuse, only to be neatened for the purpose of said photograph). And, well, pics of me being goofy -- can I blame it on being sick? Oh wait, I wasn't sick, though. Sigh. What a way to make a photographic entrance into the blog world ......


So, thanks again Sarah .... good job working through the stumpedness! Thanks as well go out to Fishbowl Andrea for her patience with me. And thanks, of course, to Andrea and Marla, for setting this whole thing up!