Appreciating Each Day
There’s nothing to remind us of how fragile our lives are like losing someone we know, particularly when that person is only 39-years-old. Our friend’s daughter passed away at the end of last week. She was young and of course, it was very unexpected.
When we first moved to Our Little House, one of my goals was to regularly do something we had never tried before or see places we had never been.
We’ve tried a lot of stuff. Bowling, which I had done regularly when I was younger, was something I got Dale to try. We’ve also went canoeing, which I didn’t like because I couldn’t quite get the balance thing, but it was ok. and I'm glad I tried it.
Valentine's Day Memories of Love
Ok, I’ve always been a sucker for Valentine’s Day, that quasi-made-up holiday that drives consumerism and helps greeting card companies.
When you’ve been with someone for 33 years and married for nearly 26, you know part of the deal is sharing and expressing appreciation for that love more than one day a year, but Valentine’s Day does give a foundation to help support that love.
Watching the snow fall yesterday, I was thinking of the most memorable Valentine’s Day, which was the first one we were together.
It was 1980, I was a sophomore in high school and Dale had already graduated and was working full time.
He wooed me a lot back then by surprising me with gifts and he outdid himself on Valentine’s Day by having a dozen roses sent to my high school.
Nothing earned the “best boyfriend” envy of other girls in my school more than seeing me get roses, delivered to my French class by the office secretary (who happened to be Dale’s aunt).
The second most memorable had to be the heart shaped waffle maker he bought me sometime after we married, one I still use here at Our Little House.
The next Valentine’s Day that sticks out in my mind is the one five years ago, when my mother was in the hospital.
The Book is Calling Me
The first time I saw it in the store, Dale asked me if I wanted it and I told him I would get it on my Kindle.
He said, “Are you sure that will fit on your Kindle?”
I laughed and told him it would.
For me, books are as tempting a buy as candy is to a kid and when I saw “11–22-63,” the new book by Stephen King, it was like that great big lollipop, just begging to be devoured.
The events of that day in 1963, changed the course for America, not just during that decade, but altered our nation’s history from that day forward and made more than one person wonder what the world would have been like if President Kennedy had continued to be a part of it.
It was that generation’s Pearl Harbor and our generation’s 9–11. A day so horrible for our country that no one who was alive would ever forget where they were or what they were doing when they heard the news and a date even most of those who weren’t alive know.
I wasn’t born yet, but the events of that day helped begin my life.
The Last Place You'd Look Book Giveaway
I admit that I’m a true crime junkie.
As a Kansan, my mother became interested when Truman Capote released “In Cold Blood.” The horrific murder of a small town farming family in Kansas was so unbelievable to most people at the time that the book drew readers who wanted to understand how such a thing could happen.
The superb writing and commercial success of the new genre ensured it would continue long after Capote’s book was off the best seller lists.
It made a life-long fan of my mother of the genre and by extension, myself as well. “Helter Skelter” was the first “big” book I read as a 8 or 9 year old.
But it isn’t entertainment so much as it continues to be that need to understand what makes these monsters tick.
That is what makes “The Last Place You’d Look,” by Carole Moore, such an excellent read for people who enjoy the true crime genre in books or television magazine shows such as “Dateline,” “48 Hours” and “Disappeared.”
