Last Day of 34.

Every year on the day before my birthday, I think about what I've accomplished or experienced over the past year. Have I earned another year? At 34, I 

• read 43 books
• read 6 books to which I gave 5 stars on GoodReads
• homeschooled a child with special needs for weeks despite the fact that it literally almost killed me
• participated in remote learning including sticker math, pirate art, and superhero workouts
• conducted occupational therapy sessions with telehealth
• spoke up about my need to go to the hospital despite many good reasons to lie about it
• wrote about hospital stay and shared experience
• tolerated medication increase with side effects
• went out alone after hospital release
• saw 4 musicals, all new to me
• celebrated 7 years of buddyship
• paid off a large lingering cost of Oliver's therapy
• paid off all but one credit card
• wrote 62 blog posts
• wrote my first short story in forever
• lost 30 pounds
• said, "I love you," to someone new

Comfort Kits.

I have a list in my Decomposition spiral notebook called "Care Bags for Women in Distress." I started the bags when Josh was doing a local outreach for migrants. I subscribe to ipsy, so I end up with a lot of cute little bags. I use many of them to hold pens and sticky notes, but I don't love and can't use them all. So I got the idea from Josh's project to make little bags for women who want to live here. When the project ended, we started sending the bags to the border. 

I hope to send out care bags again next month. I should have enough bags, and I'll add all the stuffing to my Amazon subscriptions. I need to check the guest room to see if I have any leftovers from last time, but I don't think I do. I want to mail at least 10 bags, hopefully 12. Josh handles the mailing. 

He admires me, but I'm mostly glad to have a good use for the bags. And I like to give a spark of comfort to a woman in distress. A tissue with lotion, good lip balm, a pop-up hair brush (those flimsy hygiene-kit combs certainly can't handle my hair), a face wipe, a breath mint, a hair tie. Things I would want if I were stuck on a bus, on the street, in a shelter. It's not soap and toothpaste, but I figure most people send that. It's the next layer of need--getting your hair out of your face, soothing lips with something that smells good. It's what I didn't have in the hospital, when I was a woman in distress. I guess they're comfort kits. 

So if you have piles of ispy bags, there's an idea for how to use them. Or send them to me, and I'll be excited to use them. I usually only have enough bags to send a batch every few months.