Sunday Blatherings--Memorial Day Edition

Happy Memorial Day to those of you here in the U.S.  For some reason I woke up yesterday, feeling a bit nostalgic.  I have many happy memories of family get-togethers, barbecues, and cemetery visits.  We have several members of our family who have served in the military.  My mother's father--Grandpa "C"--served in WWII, landing on Normandy in the fourth wave, who is still alive and hanging in there to this day.  I love him desperately and am glad my mom got the chance to fly out to see him and the family in Ohio.  His conversations about WWII are very matter of fact, which is interesting when I consider all he probably saw.

My mom's brother--Uncle "C"-- then served in Vietnam, although his experience going to war was vastly different from my grandfather's honor-filled return.  My uncle came home to people disrespecting the servicemen for serving in a war they didn't believe in.  He told us once that he quickly removed his uniform in that long-forgotten San Francisco airport, put on his civilian clothes, and never looked back.  He has rarely talked about his service, and prefers we not ask too many questions.  The last time I went out to visit, he had a stack of slides and pictures from the war that he was sorting through.  We couldn't really ask him many questions, but the painful beauty of the country that he captured, left behind a gripping bitter-sweet testimony to what he must carry in his own memory.  We know that he saw things from his tank that he has never forgotten, since he had PTSD for decades after.  When I read the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, I have often thought of my amazing Uncle "C", who is such an intensely proud and hard-working man.

I know that neither my grandfather nor my uncle read my blog, but I wanted to give them a big thank you--along with all of our servicemen--for all they have done for our country and for me.

Well, on another note, I've made a goal to try to rejuvenate my blogging--writing and reading.  Things have been tough here and I've kept it quiet, for the most part.  I've had a bit of health news that has had me pretty down--nothing life-threatening, but definitely life-changing.  We're still in the middle of tests, and I'm dragging my feet out of some strange desire to keep my head in the sand a little longer.  On top of that, our school district is no longer going to pay all of our insurance premiums.  Now I know that they paid them all is almost of unheard of anymore, but for someone like myself who seems to repeatedly get kicked in the gut with health scares, it has been discouraging.  I'm not going to be stupid enough to not pay out for good insurance coverage, so I'm gearing up to pay top price to keep my current insurance!

Let me not end this blog's blathering (which I'm truly fulfilling today) without ending on a positive note!  My best friend made it here from Michigan and we've been having a great time together.  She loves to read every bit as much as I do, so we've spent some time curled up on opposite ends of my large sectional, reading on our iPads.  She's been reading Tom Clancy's latest novel while I've been trying to finish Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.  I promised a group of students in my Popular Lit. class that I would try to finish it this weekend.  I'm getting close! 

Besides reading like crazy, we've been eating ourselves into a food coma and I'm going to have to redouble my efforts to diet away all of these extra calories!  It's been a super relaxing weekend though and I have many things to be thankful for.  My TBR and current reading list have once again grown too big to handle, so I'm hoping with school ending I can snatch a little extra time to read.  Yay for no more essays to grade for a couple of months! 

So, how is your weekend?  What are you reading or watching at the moment?