For Mother's Day I received my first digital SLR camera, with an extra zoom lens. I've had lots of fun relearning my SLR techniques, the various zooming and focusing and framing.

I was given Damn Good Novel as a gift when I started whinging about being unable to write. This quickly read, easily accessible book was almost like automatic focus. It wasn't that I have no skills, it's that I was focusing on things that were not helpful at the time. Who knows when I would have adjusted my vision on my own.

All in all, it's been a great year for gifts, and I appreciate being given this book as sort of a love-punch of encouragement.