Promise & Excitement for a New Year

When I was a young girl, my sister and I wore new saddle shoes and brand new, often homemade, dresses on our first day of school each year. (Of course, according my my children, this was sometime in the distant past just after the extinction of dinosaurs and the invention of cars and, most unimaginably to them, before computers and the internet.) The new clothes made us feel special. New clothes for the promise and excitement of a new year.

Andrea was dressed from head to toe today in new clothes for her first day of 8th grade .... amazingly cool red, silver and gray athletic shoes with navy laces; red Nike shorts engineered with complex-technology to keep her skin dry (I think she said they were basketball shorts?); a just-right navy logo t-shirt, the silver "pray hard" ring that she bought with her allowance; her silver Christian-fish necklace; and the smart silver watch with navy band that we gave for her birthday.

She put careful thought into every nuance of her look. And while I don't much understand it, and it cost us more than budgeted.....she looked wonderful. She was ready for the promise and excitement of a new year.