Hope all of you are having a great Memorial Day weekend as you dwell on happy memories of your loved ones who have passed on. Of course the day originated in the years after the Civil War to honor those soldiers who died during that war. Now we honor our soldiers who have given the supreme price for their country in all the wars since that time as well. And the day has expanded to include our loved ones whether they served as soldiers or not. It’s time to decorate their graves if you can and remember good things about them and why you loved them. Sometimes I think it’s more important to share stories about our loved ones, our grandmoms and pops, and moms and dads, with our younger generation so that we can all know about our roots and what has been important to our family.
A lot of the people in my family – grandparents and others – liked books. That passed on to me for sure. When I was a kid, books were my friends. And they still are. I was at a book event on Saturday. It was a reading celebration for the Estill County schools and there were so many kids there. It was great! One young girl and her mother stopped by my table. The girl was looking at my book, The Outsider, and her mom turned to me and asked, “Have you read this book?” Well, I guess. Only about two dozen times. When she realized I was the author we both had a good laugh and she did decide to let the girl take the book home with her. I’m hoping she won’t be disappointed with the story.
I always hope that and worry about that. I want readers to be glad they picked up my books. Anyway we had a good time in Estill County. It was like being at a giant fall festival only all the games and activities centered around books. That’s my kind of festival.
I’ve had company the last couple of days. Four of the grandkids were here, but of course baby Raegan at five weeks old is too little to make much noise yet. The other kids had fun in the big empty almost built room. It echoes nicely and that made them a little noisy but happy. My grandson, Austin, caught two salamanders and a tadpole out of the pond, so that made him happy. My granddaughters got to play with their Uncle Gary and the dogs so that made them happy. My daughter is as beautiful as ever and she got to eat fresh strawberries straight out of the patch. That made her happy. I cooked and cooked, but at least the fridge is full of leftovers. That will make Darrell happy. And me too, if I can skip a couple of days cooking stuff. I got to see my family, play with my grandkids and hold the new little one. That made me happy. And blessed. It’s fun taking time to count some everyday blessings of life.
Hope you are being blessed on every side this weekend and through the week ahead. Enjoy!