We got back in from an afternoon and evening out and all I wanted to do was to crash, but I still had to do my Giveaway, and it was my turn to put our exhausted and slightly under-the-weather son Theo to bed. He had begun the day before 7am, delighted to have his best friend Lucca still here with him after a spontaneous sleepover last night that kept them both up beyond their usual bed times. While they watched Dr. Who together, I went for a lovely walk round the lake and came back, chatted for a little while with Lucca’s parents, Suzette and Manuel, and then said goodbye to them. For much of the day, we puttered around the house, did some work in the garden, read and had lunch. In the afternoon we had plans with my sister and her daughter to see the musical Matilda and then have dinner together, so we headed off for that outing, and then had a rather dinner in one of our favorites eateries in Little Tokyo. I imagined somehow I would manage to give someone something over the course of the afternoon. However, at 9pm, when it came time to pay the bill, I looked through the emergency Giveaway goodies I keep in my purse to see if there was something appropriate to leave for a tip, but, alas, nothing seemed right, so we parted company and made our way home.

I felt a bit dejected because I knew it would be 10pm (on a Sunday night!) before I could focus on my Giveaway. After Theo was asleep, I sat down at my computer hoping that inspiration would somehow scream out at me from an email or someone’s Facebook post, but it didn’t. Instead, though, as I reflected on the day, I had the astonishing realization that I had actually done my Giveaway without even noticing. This morning, when Lucca’s parents were here, we had been talking about the boys and their upcoming week of golf camp. I had been rummaging through a box of hand-me-down clothes that are still too big for Theo and offered Suzette a golf shirt and a Hawaiian shirt for Lucca. She had been happy to take them, saying that once he’d outgrown them he could pass them back to Theo. This is the first time in over 150 days of this project that I have just given someone something without thinking of it as my Giveaway. The shirts themselves weren’t that exciting, but the fact that I had given something away without considering it as part of my project was fascinating to me. Does this mean that the act of giving is becoming less calculated and more natural? Or did I just space out? Either way, it’s a huge relief. And a chance to go to bed.