June 28
In keeping with my hope to spread this giving with strangers, my gift today was to a person who just appeared to need a little gift.  The Starbucks that I stop at in the morning is in a fairly suburban neighbourhood where the customers all seem like locals.  This might be why the person [...]

June 26
As the school year comes to a close, and I rejoin mainstream society, I feel the need to give in new, more creative, ways.  When I woke up today I wanted to make sure that I aimed my gift at a stranger.  I have yet to intentionally set out to give to a perfect [...]

Once again, I am beginning an entry with an apology!  It it not so much that I have not been giving, but I have definitely not been writing about it.  I have an excuse, a good one, the school year has just ended and I am also a grad student with major assignments due!  Writing [...]

I think I need to start this entry with a sincere apology that I have not updated my giving all week. This time of year demands all of my attention at school with the added pressure of grad school—needless to say I am a little behind is all of it right now! I have been giving though and this is how it went:

Jessie is my 9 year-old Irish Setter and has been my faithful companion since the day I brought her little scrawny 10 week-old body home, and today she was the benefactor of my giving.

When giving is this fun, it hardly feels like giving at all; it makes me feel like I am taking more than I give but I think that might be the point of this whole challenge!

Today’s gift may be the most transformative yet; not to mention the most unexpected. I am currently away at outdoor school with a large group of students and teachers and unfortuntely, one of our students fell ill late last evening.

Although I don’t want my giving to become robotic or planned weeks in advance, there is a certain amount of planning that enables me to give in ways that I can’t if I just left it all to chance.

As my giving challenge continues, I find myself going back to my perfectionist roots. When a giving opportunity doesn’t just fall into my lap, I have to think about what I can give and that makes me wonder if I am going about this the wrong way

I am home from work and I just realized that giving has escaped me today—a small bit of panic set in when I realized this! What will I give?