Today was my last day off before my trip home…. OMG was it long… Normally my day off goes way too quickly as I fill it with things I wanted to get done. Not today. Today I got trapped in the bank machine line here three times as the machine kept turning my card down and telling me to try again in a few hours. To fill in the time wondered the boardwalk looking for little gifts to give to people back home.

I hate to admit it I am a total snob at gift giving, as I hate the idea of giving things to people that just going to site on a shelf. It’s my rebellion to parents that like to collect knick-knacks that filled a house full of stuff that sat on shelves like an upper middle class Victorian. To compound this deep down I am the same as my parents and so I have this internal conflict of this collectors bug.

My solution for the current gift is to focus my search on collecting items you can’t really get back home, if any one likes a particular item I’ll give it to them. But what do I get? What I’ve focused on is the local handmade arts and craft style jewelry and small textiles like the cashmere scarves. Some of this was sent ahead in the mail and some I take with me. I hope people like it.