A Gift and A Plan- Part 1

My best friend turned 50 this past month. We don’t usually buy each other gifts, but with the same big birthday coming up for me, we’ve been talking about the ways we might celebrate this year. We will go see the new Outsiders musical on Broadway based on the novel we both read in high school shortly after we met. We will enjoy our annual dinner out on the Cape this summer. We used to say we would buy an expensive bag when we reached this milestone, but both of us have changed our opinions on that. I sent a silly gift to her house on her actual birthday. Still, I had been trying to think of some small token and celebration of her birthday and our friendship. 

For as long as I can remember I have assembled photo albums. This started in second grade when I had my roll of film developed at the local camera store and on pick up day, the technician handed me my envelope full of photos and complimented my photography skills. I am sure he was being kind, but I took it seriously, and went home to fill a small 3 x 5 album with all these photos of the animals at the Bronx Zoo. This love of creating albums continued into high school. I would pick up my photos at Walgreens, sift and sort through them, lay them out, some vertical and some horizontal, on the self adhesive pages, and surround them with words or sayings I cut from magazines. Once my arrangement was to my liking, I would return the clear film back over the page, and it was ready for viewing. My methods became more sophisticated when I began scrapbooking every Saturday night with my sister in law at the local community center. Here I would create books by using tools to round the edges of my photos and decorating pages with premade borders and colorful objects. Currently, I make these photo books online where I organize my digital photos and journal about them. 

I browsed through my phone,  Shutterfly, and many of those old photobooks to find photos of Kristen and me. The thought, the picture search, and the hobby of crafting books all came together in a photobook gift- 50 pictures to celebrate her 50th birthday. Although I had collected many more photos, I narrowed it down to a variety of fifty covering an assortment of memories- gatherings at friend’s houses, walkathons from school, proms, graduation, weddings, vacations together. I ordered them chronologically as best I could and arranged them on the pages.

The book arrived, and I wrapped it and got it ready to go to the post office when I had a thought. Today we were driving our middle daughter back to Boston from her spring break. Kristen lives just outside the city. “Will we have time to drop it off to her house?” I asked Al as we were headed out. He rarely says no, and said, “Sure.” I knew our kids wouldn’t complain about the stop as they like visiting the Mathews Family. I opted not to tell Kristen as I didn’t want her to change plans for the day. We’d take our chances if they were home or not.

To be continued, so that I have a slice idea for tomorrow!