Calendars and cool gifts

a post from a fellow blogger brought something to mind for me... she was posting on calendars and her love of a new calendar.. I have to agree there is something pretty cool about filling up the new year with birthdays, anniversaries, special occasions, anticipation of things to come, etc. 

Now I have yet to get my new calendar for 2010... might have to go 'shop' for that today.  I like a desk type calendar that can be hung up for the household to use, as well I like a small calendar I can carry with me, and I love the page a day calendars and this year I will find one with biblical verses on it... maybe I will make that verse topic of conversation at dinners throughout the year... or maybe we can read it at dinner, we all can reflect on it and discuss it at the next evenings dinner... just thinking out loud I guess.

But I have to say one of the COOLEST calendars I ever received was a calendar from the year I was born.  An old friend of mine from Maryland, Jay Weiland, and I were talking one day and I was talking about calendars and wanting one from 1965.  Well my buddy had tucked this little tidbit away in his mind apparently because it was about a year or so after our conversation he presented me with a calendar from 1965 for my birthday.

This is something I will never ever throw away.  Someday when I am dead and gone someone will be looking through my personal belongings wondering what the heck is this and WHY did she save this.  Its very special to me and I should write a note to keep with it about not throwing it out...

See its an old boy scout calendar from 1965 that Jay must have found when he was doing some work to his grandparents house.  He was an only child and grandchild and when his grandparents passed away he was left their house.  It was old and needed work and Jay attended to the work himself.. in his demo and reconstruction of some walls and/or rooms he came across this old calendar that his grandmother had used, much like I use my calendars.. to record events, birthdays, anniversaries, when Jay was coming to spend the night, when Jay broke his arm, etc...  I can recall him handing me this gift and saying its not really anything special and its 'used' of course that peaked me curiousity all the more and when I opened the package I was so thrilled... to me, this was not an old, used gift, rather it was something special and something a friend, and a guy none the less, remembered from a short conversation we had about my wanting a calendar from 1965.  And this was something Jay could have kept as a rememberence of his own grandmother, but instead he chose to give this special gift to me... It has become even more special to me as some time ago, gosh its been July 20, 1995, that Jay, sadly, took his own life... That is still a death I don't understand and I miss my friend, but I will be forever grateful for his gift!

See the greatest gifts, at least to me, don't necessarily cost anything.  This was a gift from a friends heart.. or heck maybe just something he would have trashed anyhow, who knows, but it is special to me.. dunno maybe I'm just strange like that :o)