gift - part two

Do you have someone in your life that is impossible to find a gift for? My husband is that someone in my life. Several months ago I asked him what was on his birthday list. He hemmed and hawed before finally coming up with, "My sox are getting threadbare!" and "I need new wiper blades for my car." I agree that those things are important to have, but at this stage of our lives, they are not the kind of gifts I was looking to give my sweet hubby for his birthday. I was looking for a really special, knock-your-sox-off kind of gift.

My sweet hubby!

I asked myself what his favorite things are. That's easy - his family and his favorite amusement park. Hmmm. A family trip to his happy place? Naw... impossible to get everyone together at the same time right now. A framed photograph of us all there? Oh wait, we didn't take one of all of us when we were there five years ago. And then suddenly I remembered that a friend of ours is an artist... and the wheels began to turn.

April was a co-worker of my husband's (they are both engineers) for 20 years before she retired from that career and took up another one - art. She has been involved in art for most of her life, a hobby she loves and pursues. She now has time to actively cultivate a career in art and has become an award-winning watercolorist (The Art of April Rimpo).

I emailed April about the possibility and process of commissioning a painting. She was willing but needed more information from me as well as photographs depicting the scene I had in mind. This was easier said than done. I knew in my mind what I was looking for but didn't have photographs that were true to my vision. I sent her seven or eight photos with descriptions like "this but more muted colors and no pumpkins." In other words, like this but not. After our oldest daughter suggested we add our family to the painting, I also sent photos of everybody in completely different places.

April responded with three questions for me to answer: 1) Which of her paintings I like the best? 2) What colors do I associate with this place? and 3) What about her work draws me to it? After giving it some thought, I emailed her my responses. And then she went to work. You can read about her process in her blog post - it's really quite interesting. She used Photoshop to "sketch" out the painting and sent it to me to approve before paint ever touched watercolor paper. After seeing the "sketch," I could hardly wait to see the finished product!

The painting arrived in a few weeks rolled in a tube mailer. As I carefully unrolled it, my eyes got wide and a gasp escaped from my mouth. It was absolutely perfect and I knew my hubby would love it!

This section (the left third) of the painting has bystanders. What I think is funny is that they are real people who were in the photographs I sent April. It made me wonder if the people in other paintings I've seen are real people or figments of the artist's imagination.

This section (bottom right) of the painting shows our family. Although there isn't much facial detail, it is easy to pick out who's who! 

I got it framed and then painstakingly hid it under the guest room bed - I was certain he'd NEVER look there for anything! There was just one problem. His birthday was still two and a half months away! I wrapped both the painting and a dvd he wanted. And waited.

Finally, his birthday arrived. I put the wrapped dvd out alongside his card. After he opened them, I brought the painting out. He looked a little puzzled - like maybe he was wondering where his sox and wiper blades were.

I blurred parts of the painting due to copyright issues but you can get the feel of the painting and see the joy on my hubby's face.

But when he opened it, his eyes lit up and a huge smile spread across his face. And I knew it was exactly what he wanted. He just didn't know it!

gift - part one

As our children were growing up we tried to impress upon them that choosing a gift for someone is fun but also requires thought and should be something the recipient wants or needs. We also tried to step back and really let them choose the gifts they were giving. This led to some rather... um... interesting gifts over the years.

One Christmas our youngest daughter, who was six at the time, was very excited about her gift to me. For weeks she told me it would be my favorite gift of all time. My husband, who had taken her shopping, just smiled and nodded his head. I must admit I was very curious and couldn't wait to open her gift.

Imagine my surprise when I opened this...

She saw it advertised on television and just knew it would solve my dinner dilemma when I forgot to defrost something and we "had to" order take-out. According to the commercial, as well as the box it came in, Miracle Thaw "miraculously" defrosts frozen food in "minutes." 

I thanked her for the thoughtful gift and gave my husband "the look" that said we'd talk about it later. Actually, we laughed about it because my ruse to order take-out was now over.

I admit, I was skeptical. But I didn't want to hurt my daughter's feelings so I tried it. I put four frozen chicken breasts, flat side down as the directions said, on the Miracle Thaw and waited. Imagine my surprise when it worked! Okay, it certainly wasn't "miraculous" - there was no divine intervention and I'm quite certain there is a scientific reason for why it works - but in only 70 minutes, all four chicken breasts were completely thawed. Thinking it must be fluke or something, I tried it again... and again. And twenty years later, I am still using it. 

Sometimes we don't know what we need... but someone else might!