It's my niece's 13th birthday on Saturday. It really bothers me I can't be there.
Since I acted as her night-shift mom for the summer she was born, I feel like she's my baby.
I realized a couple of months ago, though, that while I still feel like I still know her, I worry that she doesn't know me anymore. She was at an age when I left Wisconsin when memories fade more than our adult ones do.. I hope she wants to come visit me on her holiday breaks sometime soon, so she can get to know me again and I can give her a blast of a time in Florida.
So anyway, now I'm stuck trying to find her a gift that is appropriately special for her special day. Nothing seems to fit the bill. Grr.
I'm Stacey. I'm a 31(!)-year-old Wisconsin girl living in sunny South Florida. The highlights in my life are my lovely boyfriend, my aloof cats, my adorable/adoring stepdogs, my two lumbering tortoises, select family members, being outside, being underwater, taking pictures, yadda yadda. Stay tuned for lots of babbling!
A small boy lived by the ocean. He loved the creatures of the sea, especially the starfish, and he spent much of his time exploring the seashore.
One day the boy learned there would be a minus tide that would leave the starfish stranded on the sand.
When the tide went out, he went down to the beach, began picking up the stranded starfish, and tossing them back into the ocean.
An elderly man who lived next door came down to the beach to see what the boy was doing. Seeing the man's quizzical expression, the boy paused as he approached. "I'm saving the starfish!" the boy proudly declared.
When the neighbor saw all of the stranded starfish he shook his head and said: "I'm sorry to disappoint you, young man, but if you look down the beach, there are stranded starfish as far as the eye can see. And if you look up the beach the other way, it's the same. One little boy like you isn't going to make much of a difference."
The boy thought about this for a moment. Then he reached his small hand down to the sand, picked up another starfish, tossed it out into the ocean, and said: "Well, I sure made a difference for that one!"
