My lovely neighbor, Marie, knocked on my door the other day. She was wearing a frowny face which was most unusual. In her hands were a youngster’s blue hoodie jacket and a couple of squares of yellow felt. Oh, and the hood of the little jacket had what looked like very large “peel and stick” eyeballs on the top of each side.

“Drake has to dress like a storybook character for school and I’m having a little problem figuring out how to sew on a beak. Can you tell me what I should do?” Marie said.

I had heard about Drake’s favorite book, “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” by Mo Willems. Marie had told me a while back that her son belly-laughs whenever he reads it. Of course, Drake MUST be a pigeon!

I quickly inspected the jacket and had Marie follow me into my sewing room.

“I’ll just snip the felt here and make a three-dimensional beak. Then I’ll stuff it a little and whip stitch it on. It won’t take long at all. I drop it by in a little while,” I said.

Did I mention that Marie makes these amazing decorated sugar cookies? She sells them locally. I order from her from time-to-time and just love seeing my friends’ reactions to her little works of art. A couple of weeks back I ordered a batch for delivery this week after searching through her website selections (www.missmariescookies.blogspot.com). I challenged her to come up with either a “bee” or a “quilt” type cookie. And I mentioned that if that was not possible the autumn leaves I had seen on her site would do nicely. So of course Marie gave me both the bee and the quilt! And they taste just as yummy as they look.

Oh, so let me finish my story about Drake’s pigeon beak. When I delivered the pigeon jacket across the street a little while later, Marie thanked me profusely. Drake tried on the jacket and looked just adorable! Actually, Drake looks adorable without the jacket, but that is beside the point.

“I couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you again so much,” Marie said.

I smiled. Did Marie know how honored I felt to be able to participate in such a small way? Before turning to head home I stopped.

“You know Marie … my gift is that I sew … and your gift … is your amazing sugar cookies,” I said.

Life should be as simple as a child’s favorite book and a delicious sugar cookie.