"Letters to Matt" - Part Three

The next day, I went to Paper Source to get a binder or scrapbook or some kind of book thing, and I completely changed my idea of how I was going to present this gift because I was finding nothing that was matching the nebulous picture I had in my head.

One of the happy workers suggested that I make the binder scrapbook book thing I had in mind. Yeah, I really had time and patience for that!

I decided to present the letters as letters. Loose. In a beautiful portfolio on beautiful paper.

I hurried home and printed out the letters before getting the kids at school.

Thirty-one letters.

9,700+ words.

After the kids were tucked in to bed, I sat Matt down and explained that I had a birthday gift for him and apologized for the tardiness.

I handed him the portfolio, he opened it up, and read the title page,

“Letters to Matt—a celebration of your 40th birthday”.

I said a few words, and then shut up.

He held the portfolio in his lap and didn't move. He was stunned. Speechless. Rather than look through the pages, he asked me who they were from. It was as if the pieces of paper were too precious to handle.

Letter writing...a quickly vanishing art form. Oh how precious is that ink on that paper.

He was experiencing that pull between wanting to devour the letters and wanting to savor each and every word.

As he sat mesmerized, I quietly got up from the couch and left him alone for the rest of the night.
Periodically, I’d glance over at him. Reading, taking it all in, stopping, walking away, coming back, resuming, reading, taking it all in, and repeating the process several times.

He sent me an email the next day, a simple “P.S. I’m still reeling from that wonderful gift.”

I am too.

Thank you everyone. Thank you.

"Letters to Matt" - Part Two

In the middle of the following day, I remembered about my little project and thought I’d see if anyone had responded. I was SO excited when two people had already emailed their letters. Hot diggity!

The next several weeks were hard because I normally share my enthusiasm for things with Matt. I’d find myself ready to blurt out, “Oh I got another letter today!”, and then realizing, “Oh yeah, that’s right, he doesn’t know about that.” When you have zero secrets with someone, even keeping a “good” secret is a bit unnerving.

The deadline came, and I had twenty-something letters sitting in my designated email inbox. Then a few days after the deadline, I had three people ask if it was too late. No! A few days after that, two more people sent theirs in.

So now I had all these letters, which I hadn’t looked at, done anything with in those six weeks. Just let them “pile up”.

Now I was like, “Okay, you’ve GOT to finish what you started.” The task seemed daunting.

Thankfully, I had my aunt to help me talk through how the final product should look.

Questions like:
Should every letter have its own page, even if it’s a short letter? (yes)
Should everything be in the same font? (no, font choices are like handwriting)
How should the letters be organized? (by categories—family, friends, colleagues)
Should there be anything that unifies the letters? (same margins and same paper)
Should I edit/correct anything? (spelling, but not syntax or grammatical stuff)

I waited for Matt to go to bed, and I got to work. This was the first time that I read any of the letters, and I had to keep stopping. They were so thoughtful, so wonderful, so rich, so overwhelming.

All the different voices, different perspectives. And yet common themes, similar observations of who Matt is, from his friend he’s had since they played in a sandbox together, to his newest colleague, and everyone in between.

I remember thinking, “Okay Bridgett, this is Matt’s gift. You cannot freak out and upstage his gift with your blubbering emotions. Remember to have restraint and leave him alone to experience all of this.”

To be continued in my next post

"Letters to Matt" - Part One

What do you get a guy for his 40th birthday who really isn’t a gift kind of guy?

How do I acknowledge a milestone birthday for my husband, when a lavish surprise birthday party isn’t in the cards since most of his friends and family live out of the state and even out of the country, leading filled-to-the-brim lives?

How do I pay tribute to my boyfriend of nineteen years? What would be meaningful to him?

The idea came to me about six months ago, kind of out of the blue, when I was doing dishes or something mundane. Since Matt is a writer and loves, loves, loves the written word, what if I had significant people in his life each write him a letter marking his 40th birthday?

For many years, Matt has paid tribute to his friends and family by writing true stories, in newspaper form, about them. He even started to offer his services to those he didn’t know, as an amazing keepsake with "Your Front Page".

Knowing that I would absolutely do a terrible job if I tried to imitate Matt’s brainchild, I decided to let everyone else do the writing!

Originally, the goal was to have the gift completed by Matt’s birthday, which was almost two months ago. But at about the time I was going to break in to his laptop for email addresses and send out the request for submissions, Matt’s dad fell ill and his health rapidly declined.

Matt flew down to Florida and spent the last few days with his dad before his dad left for heaven on May 29th. No one knew just how gravely ill his dad was, as evident by this Father’s Day tribute Matt had written three weeks earlier, which was published just two days before his dad moved on.

Life was immediately different in our home after that, and I thought about abandoning my gift idea. But rather than abandon it, I surrendered to the fact that it just wasn’t going to happen in the time frame I planned, but that it was still worth doing.

So I sneaked out of bed on the eve of his birthday, gathered email addresses from his laptop, set up a separate “LetterstoMatt@” email account for people to secretly send their submissions, and I sent out emails to about 65 friends, family, and colleagues explaining my vision for the gift and giving a five-week deadline (which was extended another week since we ended up being on vacation on the original date).

It was 2 am, there was no turning back, I had no idea what to expect, didn't know who'd respond, how they'd respond, and therefore hadn't really worked out all the details regarding the final product.

I crawled in to bed, hugged my slumbering husband, and prayed to God that people would be inspired and I left it all in His hands.

To be continued in my next post…

Happy Birthday Twinkies!

Our kids turned five years old a few days ago. It was wall-to-wall activity from the moment they woke up until the moment their little heads hit their pillows.

Here is the Itinerary for Twelve Hours of Birthday Fun


*The kids attended their last day of summer camp complete with frozen fruit bars and a rendtion of Happy Birthday to You for each of them


*The kids opened presents including Klutz Ribbon Collections from Grandma and Grandpa










*We all drove to downtown Chicago to Navy Pier

*We rode the ferris wheel a couple of times

*The kids rode the carousel

*We ate french fries and ketchup

*We had a very short-lived minature golf game before abandoning the idea because of the long wait between holes

*We drove to California Pizza Kitchen and enjoyed pasta

*The kids had HUGE sundaes complete with hot fudge and whipped cream, leaving very little for their mom and dad.

* The kids barely stayed awake for the short ride home.

* All four of us snuggled in to one bed together and fell asleep.

*Matt and I woke up with cricks in our necks, put everyone in their own beds, and promptly fell back to sleep until morning.

Having fun can be exhausting!

Ribbon Gift Collections

I asked the kids what they each wanted for their 5th birthday. Both said, "The book Cayla got." About two months ago, they were invited to a birthday party and gave Cayla a Klutz Ribbon of Choice.

Ribbon is like a gift card in some respects, and better than a gift card in other respects:

1) It's easy and convenient. I give the recipient the album and/or the gift card, they choose and redeem online, and the gift gets sent right to their door.

2) It fits any budget. The Ribbons range in price from $25 to $500 (all prices include shipping of the gift!).

3) Unlike traditional gift cards, a recipient gets a full gift without having to dip in to their own pocket. With traditional gift cards, a person goes to the store to redeem it, and it’s a game of picking something out that is close to the gift card dollar amount, without going too much over, so that they don’t have to shell out too much additional money to get their gift.

4) It offers popular name-brand gifts such as adidas, Ghirardelli, Cuisinart and Sony.

5) It's personal. Rather than giving someone just one step removed from cash, they receive an actual present without knowing exactly how much you spent.

6) It's a success. You know that the person is getting what they really want, because they get to choose.

7) It's backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee and great customer service. If anything is wrong with the gift card/album or the gift, a solution is right in sight with no hassles.

8) It's backed by Amway Global, a 50-year solid company, with no fears of Chapter 11, like some traditional gift card issuers are currently facing.

9) It's for all gift-giving needs--personal and professional. Currently there are 19 different albums to choose from , with some "specialty" albums designed specifically for occasions like a wedding or baby shower; or to fit a special focus like my favorite "Pamper" for those who need a little TenderLovingCare.

10) Coupled with Quixtar/Amway Global's patented DITTO program, Ribbon is an easy and efficient way to budget and fulfill your gift-giving needs throughout the entire year.

I am a big fan of Ribbon, and I guess now so are my kids!