From Ordinary to Extraordinary

The chapter Tomie de Paola writes about his "Nana Upstairs" and "Nana Downstairs," starts out as an "every Sunday" kind of story. That makes me think of the things I used to do in an "everytime-the-same-way" kind of way:

• 4th of July sparklers in the front yard
• Christmas morning card games as we waited to wake our parents
• making cookies to fill the Ernie cookie jar

Reading further in the chapter, though, Tomie takes an ordinary Sunday story and turns it into an extraordinary one:  One Sunday he got into the medicine cabinet and mistook the chocolates for chocolates (Don't know what I mean? Read the chapter; it's hilarious!)  Now I think about those extraordinary times:

• The fire in the oven during an ordinary cookie-making day
• The ordinary softball practice that turned into an ER visit and 10 stitches in the lip three days before prom
• The everyday stop at my locker between classes that became a "love-at-first-sight" introduction 

What a great example of how EXTRAORDINARY events--the ones we love to write about--can sneak up on us and change our lives forever.