When I moved to my present state of residence, I was also in a suburb of a large sprawling city near a state university campus. So from time to time, I would heare references to places near our neighborhood. Yep ~~ the media, and too often the crime, was getting closer.

So imagine my surprise this morning when my radio alarm went off. I was listening to a traffic report and it mentioned the cross street intersection at the end of my little dirt road, mentioning our little street by name! Our little dirt road, way out in the country, apparently too short to be called a "road" and instead called just a "point". Supposedly a building was on fire. I donned my fleece jacket and went outside in the 43 degree weather to see what was the matter. Hmmm. Nothing I could see from our yard. I checked our own barn - nope, okay. Not even a plume of smoke, no smell, no flashing lights, no noise. Then I checked the city newspaper website, and sure enough, a little down the road, both lanes are supposedly blocked due to "fire activity". Maybe it is a cat in a tree? Talk about a good excuse for DH to roll over and go back to sleep: "Boss, didn't you hear the radio this morning? It was all over the news."

POST SCRIPT: I thought the above image would be a good attention getter, just like the radio report was for me. Not too many things would make me run outside in the dark morning at 43 degrees.

UPDATE: At 9:30 a.m. - THIS WAS NO JOKE. A family actually lost their house overnight. DH passed it on the way to work, about a third of a mile from our house, and he said the house looked like it had been burned up inside, although the outside walls were okay. The roof was burned out. How sad!!! The fire department must have put the fire out by the time I was looking down the road early this morning. When you live in the country, you have to consider that there are no fire hydrants near your house, and this can really make a huge difference. The fire station is less than a mile from here, yet a house was lost.

Now I look above at how casually and flippantly I wrote this morning's early post, trying to inject some humor, and now realize that a family near us lost their home today! Yet another reminder to me how quickly and dramatically things can change in life.