Memorial Day Thoughts

I had planned to have pictures of finished items today, but that would have required taking out the camera and actually snapping photos. Oh, well, now I have blog fodder for later in the week.

1. Freedom isn't free. Yes, that is a catchy slogan that is used by too many people for too many wrong reasons. Still, it is true. Young Man is currently reading two books on the Revolutionary War (this one and this one) and I am well into the Civil War in Doris Kearns Goodwin's biography of Lincoln and his cabinet. Those wars defined the country we now know and those results certainly weren't free.

2. Regardless of our views on the current government and their decisions, those who carry out those decisions deserve our respect and admiration. We recently had the opportunity to spend some time with our neighbors' son who was home on leave from Iraq. He was a confused young man while he was growing up here. I never did agree with most of the parental decisions made on his behalf and have been more than a little distressed to see the same patterns being followed with his baby sister. Still, the Marines were the right choice for him and he is the one who made the choice. He has learned a whole different perspective and is growing into a nicely self-assured man. He still needs to learn more about the world and that there are other views beyond his parents' narrow ones, but he is on his way.

3. I am very lucky to have the luxury of thinking these thoughts in the warmth and safety of my home.