In Which My Day Starts Out Blah And Gets Better

This morning I felt really crabby and frazzled as I dropped Connor off for school.  The morning had not gone well; one of the cats (and I can guess which one) had apparently decided the detachable foam tongue of one of Connor's ankle-foot orthotics would make a fantastic toy and had absconded with it.  I spent a good half an hour looking underneath all of our furniture for it with no luck, and so I had to take Connor to not only sans braces but also tardy.  As of right now, the piece is still AWOL. 

So I was not in the best of moods.

I knew that if I didn't want to spend the rest of the day out of sorts I needed to do something quick, so I decided a little retail therapy might be an order.  I knew that a lot of the stores in the mall were transitioning out their spring clothes and moving in their summer clothes, so I stopped in and browsed their clearance racks for items to donate to the orphanage.  I've learned that one sure way to make myself feel better is to do something nice for somebody else, and those clothes went a long way to boosting my mood.  While I don't buy things like formula or medication until a few weeks in advance because of the expiration dates, I constantly keep an eye out for some of the items that won't expire-- like developmental toys, bandages, school supplies, and the aforementioned clothes-- and I snap them up on sale when I can.  I keep a box in Ellen's closet where I store everything I've found, and then every time our agency goes over to Thailand I send a bunch of things with them. 

So things were looking up as I left the mall.  The bar of gourmet chocolate I bought on the way out (which I donated directly to my mouth) tipped the balance, and by the time I drove to pick up Connor life was grand once again.

Ellen's care package is sitting on my counter right now all ready to go, which also makes me pretty happy.  I wanted to make it look pretty but I needed to make sure that the orphanage staff would be able to open the package and check the contents before they gave it to Ellen.  They know her best and if there's something in there that isn't appropriate for her at this time, then I wanted them to be able to take it out and still have the whole thing look pretty. 

I looked for a box with a lid at our local craft store but apparently they've stopped carrying them, so I ended up getting a plastic bin, covering it with wrapping paper and lining the inside with tissue paper.  It's maybe not the most elegant solution (and next time I'll probably try the craft store across town, which might still carry the boxes) but looks decent and hopefully the orphanage will be able to use the bin for something.  We're waiting on a letter to come back from the translator, and then I'll bake her some cookies (because for a person with a Feed People gene like me, no package is complete without some form of tasty baked good in it) and we'll send it off!  It gives me a warm feeling every time I look at the box, because I know that in a few weeks it will be in our daughter's hands. 

So I hope that she knows how much love we've packaged inside!  Or at the very least that she likes the cookies.  For us Feed People folks it's sort of the same thing.

~Jess