So for my nephew's birthday, I surprised him with a trip home for the weekend. Along with some gift...who can really remember those material things?

My niece's birthday is coming up. Considering that I'm 77 days delinquent of my student loan (I'm taking care of it...really), and that I'm meagerly making minimum credit card payments every month...I obviously can't afford the $200 ticket home this time around.

So what do I do for her? It needs to be something better than "send a card" and ship her something from amazon.com. But I don't know what. That alone is a stretch (well, not the card. I already have that)...but I feel like I need to do something really special for her, and I just don't have the means. I don't want to get her something lame from her "wish list"...if I were going to get her anything, it would be something super sweet like an iPod...but if I don't have $200 for a plane ticket, it goes without saying that I can't buy her an iPod.


I'm stuck. My niece means a great deal to me. I need to show that in some way that doesn't involve money, or my presence 1000 miles away. Right.