A Weekend to Remember

Happy Memorial Day weekend to my American readers! (Happy regular weekend to everyone else!) I’m packing up and heading to Northern Indiana to visit family members for three days, but I didn’t want to just take off without saying goodbye first.

I also wanted to post a picture of flowers for Memorial Day, but this bunch on my kitchen windowsill were the only ones handy. They’ll have to do.

Who are you remembering this weekend? Our town has lost a lot of soldiers to the war in Iraq recently–one 19-year old was killed last week after only five weeks of duty, and Matt Maupin’s body came home last month. There have been way too many funerals for our local boys lately, and our yellow ribbons are looking pretty faded, tattered, and torn. Our thoughts are with the soldiers and their families.

I have a few more things to say that have nothing to do with houses. If you’re one of my regulars, read on.

Gosh, this is going to be a depressing post, but I also just have to mention that Grammy-winner Steven Curtis Chapman and his family have been on my mind a lot the last couple of days since their daughter Marie was struck and killed by an SUV their older son was driving.

Steven actually attended the same college my husband and I went to and lived in the same dorm that Dave did for awhile. He’s not only an amazing singer and songwriter, but an amazing guy. He and his wife had three biological children and then felt called to adopt three girls from China. Five-year old Marie Sue was one of them. (You can read more about the tragedy here.)

When terrible things like that happen, it really reminds you how short and precious life is, and how much we need to treasure each other while we can. I for one have been hugging my kids extra tight.

(My 13-year old son says, “Mom, why are you being weird? Let go already!”)

In a little lighter vein (okay, a much lighter vein–no good segue here), I popped over to check on my listing at Delightful Blogs today and nearly fell out of my chair when I saw what you guys had done. No way.

Twenty-five of you went over there and rated Hooked on Houses. I couldn’t believe it. I don’t think any other blog in their directory has that many ratings! Not only that, but every one of you rated it a 10. My jaw hit the desk, I was so stunned.

And then–then!–I saw that many of you actually took the time to leave comments, and they were such nice ones, too! Reading them got me all choked up. What amazing readers I have. I feel so lucky. I can’t even explain how much your encouragement means to me.

So I just have to send out a big ol’ THANK YOU to Bonnie, Judy, Jackie, Janet, Jamie, Courtney, Meredith, Aja, Gary, Tracey, and Melanie. You totally made my day.

(You can read their comments here. Or counter with one of your own if you think I’m going to get a big head now and need to be taken down a peg or two.)

All right, I guess I’ve been putting that packing off long enough. I don’t know if I’ll have Internet access over the weekend or not, so if you write me and I don’t respond right away, I promise I’m not ignoring you on purpose! I’ll be back on Tuesday with some fun new things to gawk at.

In the meantime, catch up on any older posts you may have missed. I keep hearing that some of you have a hard time keeping up with everything we’re talking about here on the blog, so now’s your chance to get up to speed.

And leave me a comment or two to come back to, while you’re at it. There’s nothing worse than coming home from a trip to an empty inbox, like nobody missed you at all. Tell me how you’re spending your weekend, or who you’re remembering on Memorial Day.

Bye, guys! Be back real soon! -Julia