So I resumed counting yesterday on my 29 days and yesterday’s gift was a quilt to my mother-in-law.  Yes this was her Christmas gift, and yes, its over a month late.  But its still a gift because I worked SO hard on it.  And its late because my father-in-law had very unexpected open heart surgery the week before Christmas and it threw us all for a loop.  We truly forgot that it was Christmastime for about a week.  Needless to say, most Christmas shopping/presents were completely put on hold.  On top of that, my Mom broke her ankle the week before Thanksgiving, and  had to have surgery.  We had planned for her to come up the week before Christmas to stay with us for about 2-3 weeks while she was recovering.  It was a very crazy time.

My MIL, Diana, seems to be more and more into the bold and bright colors that are often associated with the Hispanic cultures.   I spent more time than I’d like to admit at the quilt shop, with a few employees, trying out various combinations of fabric.  I didn’t want anything too pastel-y, and I didn’t want it to be too dark with greens and blues.  So far, everyone I’ve shown the quilt to has loved the color combo.  I’m super happy with it myself.  I quilted it on the diagonal for the first time, thanks to much inspiration from Ashley.  If you look close enough, you can see where my straight lines weren’t so straight.  But you wouldn’t look that close since you don’t want to get pinched.  

The binding was kept simple – there was already so much color, that I didn’t want to take away from the quilt with yet more busy-ness.   Its Kona Orange.  Seems to really tie it all in together, don’t you think?  Finished dimensions are 70″ x 70″.  The pattern was based off of the “It’s a Rosy Day” quilt from Quilt Magazine in April 2009.

My gift for day 2 was doing a double shift for today (day 3).  Yes, I got paid for it, but I *certainly* didn’t want to do it; especially after working til 11pm, and then having to show up at 7am for a 16 hour shift.  Oh, and I have to get up early tomorrow as well to judge a Lego League competition at Georgia Tech.  I’m going to crash come Sunday.

As for my gift on Day 3 – working 16 hours has made my brain foggy.  I think today’s gift was simply saying some kind words to a new PACU nurse.

I’m still having a hard time distinguishing “doing my job” from “giving” while at work… because so much of my job IS to give to others (namely patients).  But this is about going beyond what we normally do, and beyond ourselves, so hopefully as I continue this it will be become more and more clear how to give to others while at work.  I think it will be about giving to my co-workers…