{"id":1989,"date":"2014-07-27T16:12:19","date_gmt":"2014-07-27T20:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/?p=1989"},"modified":"2014-07-29T18:31:37","modified_gmt":"2014-07-29T22:31:37","slug":"the-cost-nothings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/2014\/07\/27\/the-cost-nothings\/","title":{"rendered":"The For Nothings"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DSC_9782\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe second best thing after a gift itself is the way of giving it\u201d \u2015 Ali Boussi<\/p>\n

In the middle of the mom\u2019s-been-rushed-to-the-hospital-with-a-UTI saga I thought that rescheduling our, now annual, Christmas in July celebration might be appropriate. But we could make it look a bit different she said.\u00a0 Ok?\u00a0 Let\u2019s just be together.\u00a0 And so it was that I found myself with my best friend and her daughter at Kinchley\u2019s on Friday night.\u00a0 Not the elaborate sleep over we had planned but a fun dinner at a place that defies gloom on every level.\u00a0 We ordered and while waiting they both began to fidget a bit in their seats.<\/p>\n

We got something for you.<\/p>\n

You did?\u00a0 I was genuinely surprised and they were both pretty happy with themselves about that fact.<\/p>\n

Do you want to go first, no you go first.\u00a0 Should we give her this first or that first?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a this AND a that?<\/p>\n

From out of the bag emboldened with the words \u201cshopping is my cardio\u201d came the first something.\u00a0 Prefaced by the disclaimer: \u201cyou know we are big believers in\u00a0“for nothings\u201d so we found this at a tag sale in Lake George and we thought of you.\u00a0 All I heard was \u201cwe thought of you\u201d and then the book came out of the bag.\u00a0 What else would you give a person so enamored with legacy but a book titled Pioneer Women, Voices from the Kansas Frontier.\u00a0 The introduction by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr alone made my heart skip a beat.\u00a0 I know I\u2019m a history legacy crazy woman. But how perfect, even after the man holding the tag sale said all the good books were inside, these were just the cast offs.<\/p>\n

\"DSC_9803\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Now which one? They looked at each other. Oh this one is really cool Aunt San.\u00a0 It was a book, no it is a book but they carved your initial out of it.\u00a0 It\u2019s repurposed.\u00a0 And damn cool if you ask me I said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a>\"DSC_9789\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This one\u2019s from me.\u00a0 In the box were two spoons one small and one larger.\u00a0 I know where these are from, they looked at each other as if I were crazy or knew their every move, no not where you got them but where they\u2019re from.<\/p>\n

\"DSC_9796\"<\/a><\/p>\n

They are from Malaysia.\u00a0 I have a set very similar to them.\u00a0 Turns out on one of their pop-ins at a local antique shop (because after all one must get in their cardio) my dear niece exclaimed, look Mom, spoons for Aunt San. The spoons are wonderful but even more wonderful; I\u2019m in there. There are references that only equate to me in that beautiful little girl\u2019s mind and I had all to do not to\u2026well you know. <\/a>\u00a0In my heart I hope that I was gracious in accepting these wonderful thoughtful gifts and not seem so selfish in my discovery that my legacy is growing with this future woman.<\/p>\n

Dinner was fun; the movie we watched was fun.\u00a0 We three had fun.\u00a0 It was indeed a \u201ccost nothing\u201d kind of night that will forever be precious to me. \u00a0I may not be the Aunt that comes to the birthday parties but I am the Christmas Eve Aunt, the cool in some weird kind of way Aunt, the Aunt that stands in for Grandmas that can\u2019t make performances and the Aunt that collects spoons, pottery and chairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cGracious acceptance is an art – an art which most never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving…. Accepting another person’s gift is allowing him to express his feelings for you.\u201d \u2015 Alexander McCall Smith<\/p>\n

P.S. I stand corrected on the proper “nothing”.\u00a0\u00a0I was mistaken in thinking it was a “cost nothing” when it was a “for nothing” an even better nothing than the first.\u00a0 It remained a cost nothing\u00a0kind of an evening however. \u00a0Hopefully I’ve made it right this time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe second best thing after a gift itself is the way of giving it\u201d \u2015 Ali Boussi In the middle of the mom\u2019s-been-rushed-to-the-hospital-with-a-UTI saga I thought that rescheduling our, now annual, Christmas in July celebration might be appropriate. But we … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[481,479,331,471,480],"class_list":["post-1989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-company-of-women-2","category-pause-points","tag-books","tag-cost-nothings","tag-gifts","tag-legacy-things","tag-spoons"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27hQ5-w5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1989"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1997,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989\/revisions\/1997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}