Greetings and welcome to the weekend! 

Right now I'm on a plane, happily (I hope?) returning from a few days away with Greg. That means it's already been a whole lot of off-time weekending for me and now it's back to pay the piper with laundry and re-entry! Oh, that piper. I'll write more about our trip--and how things went at home in our absence--next week. 

. . . 

Since it's Father's Day on Sunday in the US & UK (it's on September 1st here in Australia), here are a few of my favorite dad-related links for your weekend enjoyment:

• John Steinbeck's letter to his son Thom about first love is a tender must-read. So is this series of letters from astronaut Jerry Linenger he wrote to his 14-month-old son from space. (And, really, Letters of Note is just generally un-missable. I love that blog!)
• Joanna featured some great last minute ideas for Father's Day gifts this year: 5 gifts guys secretly want for Father's Day. 
• Or, if you're really at the last minute, you could always re-create an old family snapshot for the win. 
• Dads Are the Original Hipsters still cracks me up every time: 
  

• The book My Father's Arms are a Boat is in the box I'm sending to my dad this year. According to Brain Pickings, "this tender and heartening Norwegian gem tells the story of an anxious young boy who climbs into his father's arms seeking comfort on a cold sleepless night." The design and illustrations are exquisite:

. . .

Speaking of fathers, I love this passage about Corrie ten Boom's father, from her memoir The Hiding Place: 

Seated next to Father in the train compartment, I suddenly asked, "Father, what is sexsin?" 

He turned to look at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing. At last he stood up, lifted his traveling case from the rack over our heads, and set it on the floor.  

"Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?" he said. 

I stood up and tugged at it. It was crammed with the watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning. 

"It's too heavy," I said. 

"Yes," he said. "And it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It's the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you." 

And I was satisfied. More than satisfied--wonderfully at peace. There were answers to this and all my hard questions--for now I was content to leave them in my father's keeping." (Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place) 

. . . 

And, finally, this gem:

Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

. . . 

Happy Father's Day, all!