Thoughtful and Wonderful!

For this exchange I gave my giftee a few different resolutions I have. I figured that they would hopefully find at least one that inspired them, and boy did it ever!

But let's back up to how I got the gift. A postman rang my doorbell, but also my neighbors bell. So my neighbor says he thinks it's for him and he would go to the door (one flight of stairs down). I think nothing of it, until I heard my doorbell go again, and there was my neighbor with a lovely white box for me! Turns out the postman had 2 packages and just pressed both our doorbells at the same time. So it was quite unexpected to get this when I thought the postman was there for my neighbor!

The box unfortunately had to sit in my house for a few days because I didn't have time to open it up... until now! The box is really sturdy, which is good because there's definitely something quite heavy moving in there. Cutting the tape and opening the lid, the first thing I see is a lovely card with a quite encouraging message on the front of it: "Good luck! You can do it!" Beneath the card is a big cylindrical item wrapped in bubble plastic, and a rectangular thing wrapped in gift wrap. This is quite exciting! But before I can start unwrapping I take the time to read the card. It has an equally encouraging message inside, with the gifter saying they hope the gifts help with my resolutions. I'm sure they will :D.

Feeling cheered on by that lovely message, I take everything out of the box and do a little indecision dance before deciding to open the rectangular package first. It has a sticker from a bookstore on it, and I love books, so books are always a great gift for me. Opening the wrapping paper I see a lot of colorful food, and then my eye falls on the title 'canning and preserving' (but in Dutch). That's awesome! One of my New Years resolutions is to meal prep more, so this book will definitely help!

I actually taught myself the basics for jarring, but I only use it for 2 or 3 recipes and it doesn't always go as well as I would like. I hope this book will help broaden my horizons and possibly help my failure rate go down. I quickly checked the index and there seems to be a really good mix of recipes and in depth information on different techniques. And it's not just about canning, also for drying and jam making, it even has a little chapter on fermenting! This just fits extremely well with my style of meal prep, and it seems to be really comprehensive and technical, which is something I really appreciate! Honestly, this is part of why I love these exchanges, being gifted something you didn't know you needed but you find is exactly the right thing! Thank you santa!

But that's not all, there's also a second gift! I am halfway into opening it when I see through the bubble wrap that it's some kind of glass and it clicks: My gifter must have sent me some canning jars to go with the book! Soon after having that thought, I completely unwrap the item and it's not just one but TWO glass jars! One is bigger than the other, and both have a lovely 'homemade' label on them! These will definitely come in handy! I will make another resolution right now to fill them as often as possible this year, and always live up to the label <3.

Thank you so much santa! This is a lovely gift and I can't wait to really get into the book and start experimenting with the different recipes/techniques.