This year I have been very conscious of every single day going by, more perhaps than in any other year of my life. Because of this Daily Giveaway, I have been counting up the days of giving, the days of blogging and even the number of people reading my blog! Now that I only have 60 days to go, I have definitely started a countdown. I am also trying to meet a deadline to get a book written. I now have 15 days left for that project (which means that the next 15 blogs might be pretty short!). I am also currently counting down the days to my birthday – in 11 days. I am hoping that amidst all this other counting down, I will still be able to enjoy that day, especially since I will turn 49 and commence the countdown of the last year of my forties.

I am not sure whether all this counting is a good thing or not. On the plus side, I am certainly living each day one at a time, very mindful of the time passing. I am feeling grateful for each day that I complete a gift and a blog, and I’m realizing on a daily basis how full my life is. On the minus side, sometimes I might be focusing too much on the numbers and the quantitative aspect of the giveaway project and not enough on the qualitative…Like today, as my head throbs and drips with the congestion of an autumn cold, and I am hunkering down at home trying to rest, I am resigned to doing a quantitative, rather than qualitative giveaway. I simply stopped off at the Little Free Library. But instead of just giving a single book away, I decided to choose a number of books that means something to me today. I chose 11 books, for the 11^th month and for my birthday on the 11^th, the 11^th year of my son’s life. All of these numbers may not be important when it comes to measuring the true value of one’s life or experiences, but they are really helping at the moment not only to keep track of time but also to count all of my blessings.