According to PaperNapkin, January 8-12 is blog de-lurking week!

Of course, I know who most of my regular readers are, since you aren’t lurking … but if there’s anyone I’ve missed during my obsessive stat watching, feel free to stop by and let me know who you are!

Well, maybe not right now, it’s a little too chilly. But when we were in the Outer Banks of North Carolina in July, it was wonderful. So, I wish I was there, and I wish it was July.

I took this picture on the deck of the beach house we rented over the summer. It is also set as my wallpaper on my computer at work.

Daily, I am reminded of those evenings we spent relaxing on the deck, preparing to watch the sun set.

It makes me happy.

My round-trip commute is about 50 miles a day, mostly on a highway.

In July 2004, I bought a new car, replacing my 10-year-old Geo Prizm.

On the way to work one day, with only 1,500 miles on my new car, a pebble hit my windshield just right, causing a small chip.

Being a brand new car, I was anxious to get it fixed. I called the glass repair company, who sent their mobile repair unit to my office to fill the crack that day.

Maybe I made it a year before the next rock hit. I went through the same process, leaving another faint scar on my front windshield.

The third strike happened a few months ago. We were on our way home from work, when a very large object struck near the top of the passenger side. We don’t know what it was — a rock? Chunk of concrete? Piece of a car?

Whatever it was, my husband (the passenger) wonders why he didn’t duck — if cars didn’t have safety glass, it surely would have impaled him!

The resulting fist-sized starburst + cracks in every direction required installation of a new windshield (the mobile repair unit can do that at my office, too). I was happy to have a blemish-free windshield again!

That lasted until today, when a little sedan sped past me on the shoulder (he should have merged behind me). As he swerved passed me and changed lanes, he kicked up yet another pebble that created a coin-sized starburst.

Enter glass repair company, again. That makes four repairs in the two and a half years I have owned my car.

Actually, I have needed five glass repairs in the past three years. Shortly before its retirement, the Prizm needed a crack repair. (I wanted a few more months out of it, and wouldn’t have been able to do that if the crack spread across the window!)

I’m just starting to wonder … is my particular car model prone to rock attacks, or do I just have really bad luck?