Serendipity

So, my weekend started with a great morning running errands with John.  He had some work to do at Athene and I went grocery shopping.  Before he was ready to be picked up, I thought I would stop and use Isabelle's Starbucks gift card I had gotten for Christmas.  I got into the drive though line to wait.  I watched the young couple (in their older style mini-van) in front of me place their order, mulling over the menu intently.  No problem, I was in no rush.  John wasn't ready to be picked up, and despite the cold, it was a bright and sunny day.  As, they moved forward, I had decided that I would keep my order to a minimum.  I wanted to make this gift go as far as possible and so I ordered a tall Caramel Machiotto~$3.90.  Very proud of myself.  My order placed, I moved forward to the pay window.  As, I was handing the nice lady Isabelle's gift card, she leaned out the window and kindly said, "the people in front of paid for your beverage."  Wow, how nice!  Before I was able to even respond she said, "would you like to keep it going...." Well, how could I say no.  I would look like a miser.  "Of, course! Sure." Watching as my card slide through the card reader.  "UM, how much is their bill?. Just wondering."  As, I look in my rear-view mirror and see the Infinity QX80. Remembering I'm sitting in my 2009 Murano w/ cracked front window, dented front bumper and a gas gauge that doesn't work. "$8.96," she said.  What? So, much for conserving my gift. So, much for being frugal today.  She handed me my coffee and card back and sweetly said, "you have 6 dollars and 4 cents left on your card."  I said thank you and drove away, feeling very uncharitable.  This feeling lingered for quite a while.  Sunday morning was uneventful.  I ushered at church and John, Isabelle and I went to lunch in Valley Junction.  Lutheran Church of Hope has a yearly food drive for the food pantries of central Iowa and we wanted to pick some thing up to donate.  John and I went to Hy-Vee to get our donations. When we finished gathering the peanut butter and diapers, we walked through the stationary section.  Just as we were out of that section and heading toward the registers, John said, "when we are 80 years old, we should come up to the store and go to the greeting card section and pick out cards and give them to each other right then, and then put them back." I smiled. Then I said, "let's do that now."  He hesitated, said something like we've got stuff to do...I pushed the issue and then we headed back to where we came from.  We combed the cards he in the wife section, me in the husband, just to find the right card.  The images above are the cards we picked out for each other.  Read closely....they are essentially the same card only "wife/husband" changed.  We laughed and realized we really don't need to buy cards for each other after 31 yrs of marriage.  I did say I would still take diamonds though.  Isabelle and I took sometime to shop a bit on Sunday afternoon.  We drove up to Ankeny, to drop off a small gift to Anna and Jessica for Valentine's Day.  On the way home we stopped to get gas, for the a fore said Murano.  Now, the nice thing about shopping at our local Hy-Vee stores is they give cents off of gas for buying certain products at their stores by using your "Perks" card.  Please take a look at the pic above and you will get a chuckle, as you realize I only paid $1.68 to fill my gas tank, using my Hy-Vee gas card.  As, we drove away in amazement and a light-hearted feeling, Isabelle softly said, "well, you got paid back from your coffee drive through yesterday."  We smiled and headed home.