A story, an email, a picture, a change.




The best thing I read all summer was a story in Sports Illustrated written by Gary Smith.

It starts out like this;

A Gift From Africa

Word came down from above: Make the kid feel at home. Sure, said the clubbie ... but the clubbie always said sure. He bled Bucco black-and-gold, Pat Hagerty's superiors raved in reviews of his work as the Pirates' minor league clubhouse and equipment manager. He was master of a million chores, the guy who kept the radar guns juiced, the resin bags dry, the coaches' coffee hot, the lint out of the players' jocks and the alligators out of the pond at the team's complex in Bradenton, Fla. • But then he paused and pondered: How the hell does a white-haired 48-year-old Irish Catholic clubbie from Steubenville, Ohio, make an 18-year-old Sotho tribesman from Africa feel at home?

A boy-man named Gift

You can find the whole article on line. It's wonderful.





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Here is an email I received on Monday.

Dear Simply Canvas Client:

Your canvas order has been gently taken through our production process and has reached a state of 99.9% perfection.
Our packing specialists have made sure your print is nestled comfortably inside the finest materials money can buy.
We said our final goodbyes on 09/01/09. You can track your canvas' adventure with this number 500000000000.
Please don't tackle the Fed Ex driver when they arrive. You can wait a few extra minutes for them to stop the truck.

Thanks again for choosing Simply Canvas. We are anticipating the day we do business with you again, so much we can't sit still!

Thank You,
The Simply Canvas Team

The folks over at Simply Canvas made me smile with that clever invoice.
I think they rock and I will try NOT to drool on the canvas when it arrives!


***



Four months ago Katie would call a boy from school to come over and play.
(They never seemed able to make it.)
She was still very innocent about the whole boy/girl thing.
We have always been careful to let our children grow up slowly.
We never teased about a boy being a boy friend. Ever.

But something happened in the last month.

On Monday as Katie and I sat in church and looked around to see who was there,
I said, "Jack's here."

And instead of her turning and looking and waving and smiling.

She faced forward and mumbled something.

And I knew.

It had happened.

Katie had stepped over into the land of the big girls.

“We've had bad luck with children; they've all grown up”
~Christopher Morley

Encourage one another,
Donna