Ritual #5 Doing something special

4/28/09

**Jenna got the card! Here is her reply**
Hey Tree,

I got your birthday card and the phone call. You are too sweet! I love your card. That was awesome. Where did you even find that picture? Wow! That was old.
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So this ritual has a kind of funny start. My mom suggested for a ritual to make an effort for someone's birthday, put effort into making a card so they knew I was thinking of them. She felt that it was more personalized. Funny thing is I had just sent a card out by email to my step dad so I thought she was on one hand commenting on sending him a generic email. Hey, most people will throw away a card unless it has a special message in it or something. I thought it was more eco to send email cards but turns out my mom and step dad hadn't checked their email so they didn't know I had sent an email card.

Anyway for this ritual I decided to make a card for my friend Jenna. Her birthday is coming up in about a week. As I took the time to plan out what I would make I suddenly had a flood of all these great memories with Jenna. We have been friends since we were Freshman in college which is actually about 10 years ago, how crazy! She was friends with my roomie, Katie but we ended up becoming better friends and hanging out more than she did with her. Jenna has this great personality. She is sarcastic and hilarious but also sweet, loving, and extremely generous. We spent many nights at college talking until 4am with a Yankee Fresh Cut Grass candle burning. Other times we would pile in her car she named George and try to get lost. Think she was the first one to take me to Cogswell Park in Fitchburg which is this beautiful pond. You can walk around the lake and feed the ducks. I've met her family and especially love her brother Josh and his fiance Julie. I definitely benefited from her culinary skills as she used to bake all the time.

A chocolate chip cookie stood out in my mind. Friendship is like a fresh warm cookie from the oven. Its warm, comforting, and sweet. So I ended up cutting out paper from a paper bag to make the cookie, construction paper for the chocolate chips, and I scanned a pic of us to put inside the card. On the outside it says, The sweetest thing...and in the inside it says, to have a friend like you.

I really enjoyed making this. I think my mom had a point. When you really time and thought into something for someone close in your life you really ponder what they would like and your connection with them. It was really nice to take time to reflect and I enjoyed making it by my hands.

Hope that she smiles when she opens it up :)