40 Gifts for a 40-Year-Old (That’s Me)

I’d like to show you the 40 gifts my family sent me. I didn’t ask for permission, but I guess if you give someone a gift, they can do with it what they want, right?

Hopefully this will give you ideas if you are called upon to give a collection of gifts.

1. $40 to spend at a restaurant I’ve never been to before.
2. Prejudice and Pardon by Laura Smucker
3. A lovely square Tupperware full of party mix
4. Coffee break! Maple pecan Starbucks coffee and Stroopwafels
5. Two Betty Crocker baking mixes to make life easier
6. A hot pad, a scrubby, and two small scrapers to freshen up the kitchen.
7. Butter mints with Scripture verses on them. I have them slated for the next time I teach Sunday school
8. Bath salts
9. Wild blueberry muffin and quick bread mix
10. Cinnamon graham crackers
11. What You Don’t Know About Turning 40 (I’m thinking of saving this book for the person who gave it to me!)
12. Share a Verse Scripture cards, pack of 48. I’m still making my plan about how to use these, but I think it will be great.
13. Lip balm and stevia sweetened white chocolate with confetti
14. Lemon, Marshmallow, Vanilla Candle
15. The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi
16. Birthday cake granola
17. Cookie cups mix
18. Foaming hand soap
19. Beautiful paper plates and napkins from Pioneer Woman
20. Twilight woods shower gel
21. A stately white bird (Suddenly I’m wondering where he went since I took the photo. First guess? Anina.)
22. Super cute dish towels
23. “My Favorite Childhood Memory is Having Energy” coaster. LOL.
24. Window hummingbird feeder.
25. Wilton mini cookie cutters. I’m so pumped about having a small heart cutter.
26. A real fountain pen that splatters ink if you use it wrong. So cool!
27. Coffee! I personally love when I get coffee as a gift. I don’t know why, but it makes me so pleased to not have to buy any for awhile. There was one period in my life (I think I was a student) when I basically did not buy any because I kept getting “coffee from God.” My aunt was almost mad at me, because she had to buy hers!
28. Pretzels
29. Gold-edged paper plates. Delightful at our picnic in the park!
30. Paper ice cream cups with gold polka dots for ice cream parties on our porch. Can’t wait to do this again.
31. Wild berries and hibiscus refreshing shower gel
32. 30 floral note cards – works out great because one of my 40 things is writing notes for 40 days!
33. Super absorbent dish towel set
34. $5 McDonald’s card
35. Another $5 McDonald’s card – can’t say there aren’t perks to turning 40! Bring on the ice cream cones!
36. Chapstick and keychain with Anina’s favorite pop up plastic bubbles
37. 13 HAPPY BIRTHDAY party candles
38. Butterfinger unwrapped minis
39. Godiva chocolate domes
40. Tupperware! This is a large version of the sandwich keepers I already have and love. So far I’ve been using it to store frozen fruit for my green smoothies. I hope freezing it won’t have adverse effects on the hinge.

End of the gift-giving guide! Thanks to my amazing family for the fun, creative and thoughtful gift experience!

And an update on the 40 new things I’ve been doing to celebrate turning 40. Here are items 10-15. I’m pairing these with the photos above because I don’t have photos of any of them.

10 of 40: Order gift wrap on something I ordered for myself

I had SO MUCH FUN DOING THIS. For some reason, I thought it was hysterical.

Unfortunately, a week or two later, I realized that the books I had ordered with gift wrap on them had arrived a few days before. One of two things happened. Either they forgot to gift wrap my books, or they did it so poorly I thought it was packing and never noticed. Sigh….perhaps it’s a sign that now that I’m a woman I should put away childish things.

11 of 40: Visit a new restaurant

I visited Relish Café, a small shop at the bottom of newly refurbished Hotel Elkhart with friend Amber. We forgot to take a photo!

12 of 40: Visit a new store

I got to check out Neighbors Mercantile in Nappanee. This new store opened by the owners of Main Street Coffee House has a carefully curated selection of gift items. For yourself or someone else! The best surprise for our stage of life was a play area for children.

13 of 40: Pray with a stranger in public

The other morning Anina and I walked to the river as we have been doing quite a bit lately. I sat on the top of a low wall in the shade, and let Anina out of the stroller to run for a bit.

Soon, a lady joined us in the shade with a paper bag of breakfast from the McDonald’s behind us. She exclaimed when she saw the Aquatic Center across the river, so I knew she wasn’t local. When I asked what brought her, she said she had to drop her son off at court. She shared her hashbrown with Anina and we had a nice chat.

When Anina and I were ready to leave, I remembered that someone had suggested I pray for a stranger in public. I realized it was a great idea in this case, and asked God to be with her and also bring the right outcome for her son.  

14 of 40: Produce another writers’ podcast episode

This is live today. You might enjoy it if you are a writer or any creative, especially in an Anabaptist community. I’ll add a button for it at the bottom of the page.

The episode summary–How can I know what direction I should go with my writing or art? Should I take on a big project? Should I charge people or do work for free? Katrina Hoover Lee ponders these thoughts, drawing on her experiences writing Kidnapped in Haiti (release date August 15).

15 of 40:  Post on Instagram for 40 days.

This is one of my “for 40 days” list items. So it remains to be seen if I will make it! I am allowing myself to skip days occasionally, such as when I work, but still hoping to get to 40.  

I am absolutely loving this experiment, maybe because I picked a lot of small, manageable items for my list. Maybe you ought to try it for the next birthday you dread!