Today my friend Jane (see March 13) is celebrating her 50^th. She’s having a few friends over and in the evening it gets nippy outside so I offered to lend her our big heat lamp that has been leaning against a tree in our back yard for the last few years.

We bought the heat lamp almost exactly 5 years ago for our party celebrating my husband David’s 50^th birthday, and have perhaps used it once or twice since then. It has really just been garden clutter since then, so I was excited to be able to lend it to a friend. Today, as I was getting ready to hand it over to Jane’s husband Max (see March 25) so that he could drive it to their house, David uttered words that were music to my ears: “Tell Jane we don’t need the lamp back after the party.” Hopefully, the lamp will work properly and add some coziness to the gathering. Perhaps it will give them the chance to hold more cozy get-togethers in their back yard over the holidays! As I get ready to head over to Jane’s place, I am crossing my fingers that the lamp is still working and I won’t be giving Jane just some large pieces of metal with a tube attached – possibly the worst 50th birthday present in recorded history!