It is that time of year, for wishes big and little
Step One
- Make a post (public, friendslocked, filtered...whatever you're comfortable with) to your LJ. The post should contain your list of 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple and fandom-related ("I'd love a Snape/Hermione icon that's just for me") to medium ("I wish for _____ on DVD") to really big ("All I want for Christmas is a new car/computer/house/TV.") The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.
- If you wish for real life things (not fics or icons), make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it's your address or just your email address where Santa (or one of his elves) could get in touch with you.
- Also, make sure you post some version of these guidelines in your LJ so that the holiday joy will spread.
Step Two
- Surf around your friendslist (or friendsfriends, or just random journals) to see who has posted their list. And now here's the important part:
- If you see a wish you can grant, and it's in your heart to do so, make someone's wish come true. Sometimes someone's trash is another's treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don't want or a gift certificate you won't use--or even know where you could get someone's dream purebred Basset Hound for free--do it.
You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday elf--to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not--it's your call.
There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just...wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.
This took pretty much ages to write (it's surprising how hard it is to ask for things, even undirected asking, even things you know people can't really do, isn't it?), and is in no particular order.
1) A clean, organized, and comfortable home. I'm tired of avoiding my place because it's back to being stacks of boxes and piles of clothing/fabric/books everywhere. While no one else can really do it for me (and I'd panic if people tried), some company and/or assistance while I sort through things, and help transporting things to goodwill or storage, and possibly assistance figuring out how to make money from some of the stuff, would be lovely. Someday I will move, and I'd like to not have to simply back the dump truck up to the front window and shovel things out. :P
2) A long-term foster or permanent home for Julian and Bella. Julian has become quite the cuddle-bug, in his own way. He certainly enjoys (and sometimes demands) his lap time, and he's started talking at us, which is adorable. Bella's still shy, but comes out and watches and even sniffs toes now and then. They love having other cats around. I can't split them up (Bella is miserable when Julian gets out of their room), and I can't keep them in my bathroom forever.
3) Money. A cut of a winning lottery ticket, an unexpected inheritance from some unknown relative or philanthropist, a good-sized loan from a patient and well-off benefactor, winning one of those silly jackpots on an online game or a sweepstakes - I'm not picky. ;P But I have seemingly endless startup expenses, I'm still barely making bills most of the time, and I have some major training I need to pay for in the next year or so if I'm going to progress professionally the way I need to to keep up my end up the group plans.
4) A futon. I gave my frame to a friend when I moved back from Columbus a few years back, and the mattress was later destroyed by foster cats. We would like a place to rest, nap, and study at the office(s), and it would give me a way to let D crash in Columbia for visits, which isn't currently doable short of getting a hotel room.
5) Gas cards from QT. Between going to Rolla, traveling for training, faire in season, and driving to the farm and to and from assorted workplaces, I put 40-60 bucks in liquid form into my gas tank most weeks, and more on a disturbingly regular basis.
6)
Yeah, it's predictable, but while sometimes I just use it for my own reference, it certainly doesn't bother me if people use it, even just to check their library purge for things I might be happy to take off their hands. ;)
7) Good massage music, or suggestions for same. I have a few things I've purchased from emusic, and a small number of actual discs from years past, but I'd like to expand the collection a bit to offer clients some choices, and keep myself from going nuts. (Look, I agree the album Liquid Silk is beautiful and great for massage, but if I hear it one more time in the next year, and possibly decade, I may chew through the disc. this would be why I haven't sought out a copy for myself.)
8) Work clothing. Or, more likely, help fitting/designing outfits for my clinic. I have some ideas in my head, but they're fitted and/or complex enough that I'm not going to be able to pull them off without a bit of assistance, and then I need the occasional poke to stay motivated enough to make the silly things. But since I'm not willing to wear slacks and polo shirts, I might as well make something that actually suits me.
9) Earring findings. No, seriously. See, I have some lovely earrings, but I'm sensitive to metals other than gold, apparently, so some of them I can't wear at all, and others I can only manage for a few hours at best. So I need to transfer the ones that can be transferred to gold or (the hope and the dream) white gold wires or studs with hanging loops, mostly wires. (My jewelry choices for work are rather limited by the nature of my work, and I want to be able to play with my earrings!)
10) 'Permission' to be happy. Sometimes - and I know this happens to us all in some form, and we all do it to each other in some form, and it's inevitable at times - it can be very hard to be happy. We feel guilty being happy around people who are having troubles, even if we know that they know we have troubles, too, and need the relief of being happy about something for a while. We feel guilty because we have trouble being happy with or for someone because of our own stuff, so we don't respond to their happy, and miss out on sharing it, and maybe make it a little less happy for them, if they wanted to be able to share. We feel like people expect us to complain, because obviously we're all stressed and dealing with a lot, and we must have _something_ we can commiserate about, or what good are we? Human nature. But worth being conscious of.
Sometimes, in all the stress and crazy and sometimes scary my life throws at me...sometimes I'm really very happy. There. I said it. :P
- Make a post (public, friendslocked, filtered...whatever you're comfortable with) to your LJ. The post should contain your list of 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple and fandom-related ("I'd love a Snape/Hermione icon that's just for me") to medium ("I wish for _____ on DVD") to really big ("All I want for Christmas is a new car/computer/house/TV.") The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.
- If you wish for real life things (not fics or icons), make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it's your address or just your email address where Santa (or one of his elves) could get in touch with you.
- Also, make sure you post some version of these guidelines in your LJ so that the holiday joy will spread.
Step Two
- Surf around your friendslist (or friendsfriends, or just random journals) to see who has posted their list. And now here's the important part:
- If you see a wish you can grant, and it's in your heart to do so, make someone's wish come true. Sometimes someone's trash is another's treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don't want or a gift certificate you won't use--or even know where you could get someone's dream purebred Basset Hound for free--do it.
You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday elf--to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not--it's your call.
There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just...wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.
This took pretty much ages to write (it's surprising how hard it is to ask for things, even undirected asking, even things you know people can't really do, isn't it?), and is in no particular order.
1) A clean, organized, and comfortable home. I'm tired of avoiding my place because it's back to being stacks of boxes and piles of clothing/fabric/books everywhere. While no one else can really do it for me (and I'd panic if people tried), some company and/or assistance while I sort through things, and help transporting things to goodwill or storage, and possibly assistance figuring out how to make money from some of the stuff, would be lovely. Someday I will move, and I'd like to not have to simply back the dump truck up to the front window and shovel things out. :P
2) A long-term foster or permanent home for Julian and Bella. Julian has become quite the cuddle-bug, in his own way. He certainly enjoys (and sometimes demands) his lap time, and he's started talking at us, which is adorable. Bella's still shy, but comes out and watches and even sniffs toes now and then. They love having other cats around. I can't split them up (Bella is miserable when Julian gets out of their room), and I can't keep them in my bathroom forever.
3) Money. A cut of a winning lottery ticket, an unexpected inheritance from some unknown relative or philanthropist, a good-sized loan from a patient and well-off benefactor, winning one of those silly jackpots on an online game or a sweepstakes - I'm not picky. ;P But I have seemingly endless startup expenses, I'm still barely making bills most of the time, and I have some major training I need to pay for in the next year or so if I'm going to progress professionally the way I need to to keep up my end up the group plans.
4) A futon. I gave my frame to a friend when I moved back from Columbus a few years back, and the mattress was later destroyed by foster cats. We would like a place to rest, nap, and study at the office(s), and it would give me a way to let D crash in Columbia for visits, which isn't currently doable short of getting a hotel room.
5) Gas cards from QT. Between going to Rolla, traveling for training, faire in season, and driving to the farm and to and from assorted workplaces, I put 40-60 bucks in liquid form into my gas tank most weeks, and more on a disturbingly regular basis.
6)
Yeah, it's predictable, but while sometimes I just use it for my own reference, it certainly doesn't bother me if people use it, even just to check their library purge for things I might be happy to take off their hands. ;)
7) Good massage music, or suggestions for same. I have a few things I've purchased from emusic, and a small number of actual discs from years past, but I'd like to expand the collection a bit to offer clients some choices, and keep myself from going nuts. (Look, I agree the album Liquid Silk is beautiful and great for massage, but if I hear it one more time in the next year, and possibly decade, I may chew through the disc. this would be why I haven't sought out a copy for myself.)
8) Work clothing. Or, more likely, help fitting/designing outfits for my clinic. I have some ideas in my head, but they're fitted and/or complex enough that I'm not going to be able to pull them off without a bit of assistance, and then I need the occasional poke to stay motivated enough to make the silly things. But since I'm not willing to wear slacks and polo shirts, I might as well make something that actually suits me.
9) Earring findings. No, seriously. See, I have some lovely earrings, but I'm sensitive to metals other than gold, apparently, so some of them I can't wear at all, and others I can only manage for a few hours at best. So I need to transfer the ones that can be transferred to gold or (the hope and the dream) white gold wires or studs with hanging loops, mostly wires. (My jewelry choices for work are rather limited by the nature of my work, and I want to be able to play with my earrings!)
10) 'Permission' to be happy. Sometimes - and I know this happens to us all in some form, and we all do it to each other in some form, and it's inevitable at times - it can be very hard to be happy. We feel guilty being happy around people who are having troubles, even if we know that they know we have troubles, too, and need the relief of being happy about something for a while. We feel guilty because we have trouble being happy with or for someone because of our own stuff, so we don't respond to their happy, and miss out on sharing it, and maybe make it a little less happy for them, if they wanted to be able to share. We feel like people expect us to complain, because obviously we're all stressed and dealing with a lot, and we must have _something_ we can commiserate about, or what good are we? Human nature. But worth being conscious of.
Sometimes, in all the stress and crazy and sometimes scary my life throws at me...sometimes I'm really very happy. There. I said it. :P