Labor Day

I labored to have a good time. The kids were up by 6 am, so Jill and I decided to get up and “quickly” do her progress reports for her Algebra, Geometry, and Pre-Algebra classes. I told her we could whip out reports using a mail-merge. Yeah right. Every time I go to use a mail merge I’m thinking, “I could have handwritten this in quadruplicate without carbon paper with my left hand in this amount of time.” We got names, grades entered and merge worked as expected and will be much quicker next three weeks.

Said goodbye to neighbors today who we prayed for three years ago. Their son and our son, Jacob, were best buddies, and now they are moving after living next door to one another three years. They are still in town, so we envision their friendship continuing, though differently than running around the yard almost daily with shirts off and sword in hand or soccer ball at the foot.

Mom and Dad are here, and Dad turned 69 today. He said he was in first grade when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Said he thought Pearl Harbor was a man, that boys on the playground said “I’m tough,” to which another would reply, “Not as tough as Pearl Harbor!” Happy Birthday, Dad. Sitting on the deck and talking into the night as the cicadas sang and praying with you was important to me. Thanks for coming to visit us and playing checkers with Jacob and making Ashley and Anna laugh.

Played kickball and Sorry with the kids and enjoyed saying “No” to the question, “Are you going to work today, Daddy?”

Went to see/hear Annie Lennox and Sting tonight with my friend, Shawn Brown. He is an aspiring musician and songwriter, and a good one at that. Sting was amazing, and very world music sounding. Surprisingly, Annie Lennox was soulful and bright and hopeful, different from the techno-rock of the 80s Eurythmics.

I’m thankful to have a job to return to tomorrow, but today sure was fun.