#Reverb12 Day 22: Gifts

For the month of December, I'm working on doing the daily series of Reverb prompts to help me reflect on the prior year and hope/plan for the upcoming year. If you're interested, join in; I found this to be a very useful exercise when I did it two years ago.

#reverb12 Day 22: The most important gift?

What was the greatest gift you received in 2012? What was the greatest gift you gave?

What do you intend to give yourself in 2013?

Since these go in reverse order of difficulty for me, I'll start at with the last question and work backwards.  

The last question is easy -- I intend to give myself a marathon PR in 2013.  That hasn't happened since the Boston Marathon in 2011.  But by the time it happens in 2013, that Boston PR will be 2.5 years old.  In running years, that's like a decade!  The magic time that I want in Berlin feels like a legit, solid marathon PR -- I'd be impressed if I heard it about one of my friends, and I want it for myself.  The time is very symbolic.  I'm already quite nervous about whether I can pull it off, but I shall try.   

As for the greatest gift I gave -- also easy.  I gave my husband a trip to China!  My husband and I keep separate finances (some day I should write a blog post on that, I think it's so wonderful and the least stressful way to do it!).  We take turns being the major sponsor for overseas trips.  And we usually each fund trips to visit our own families (so I bought his plane ticket to come see my family for Christmas, he bought mine to go see his parents in Pittsburgh in January).  The way it works is that hubby usually pays for a trip that includes Italy (which we do together about every other year, sometimes a bit more often), and I pay for a non-Italy trip (on the non-Italy year).  So in 2011, he funded most of our Boston-Italy-Paris trip.  In 2012, I funded most of our China trip.  In 2013, he'll fund Germany and Italy (and Lichtenstein if I'm lucky!).  And in 2014, I will likely fund the Mumbai-Dubai extravaganza! 

The greatest gift I received in 2012 is hard, especially since it might be something I get for Christmas in just a few days.  I really loved my birthday present from hubby -- tickets to the Andrea Bocelli concert in Dallas that was at the end of November.  But I'm hoping there's a good electric can opener under the tree for me in a couple days...  Haha! 

Well, this draft got hung up since I was trying to post reverb prompts in order and now it IS after Christmas!  I got my electric can opener -- and based on hubby's reaction when I opened it, I think there might be another one under the tree at home.  Oops.  I guess when you really really want something, there's a chance many people will know it.  And it's a Hamilton-Beech one (not Cuisinart) so I have high hopes that it will last long and make every can open seemlessly.  I also got a wireless keyboard and mouse, which will be nice on work-from-home Fridays.  And a wok.  And a Vera Bradley overnight bag that I think will be awesome.  And some shampoo.  And an ornament.  And a running shirt.  And some cookbooks (including one all about cheese and one where every recipe has an alternate ending so each one involves most of the same prep steps but then yields two separate meals, one vegetarian and one not, so my hubby will like that).  And probably some other things that I didn't remember but also will enjoy.