Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor

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My grandmother lived with us until I was 13 then we moved far away and she chose to stay with my uncle rather than move with us “to the sticks” as she called it. Years later when my uncle passed away my poor grandmother had to move “to the sticks” after all to live with us once more. She never liked it. It only had one theater and a drive-in, which she found barbaric. However, before the family split, geographically, my grandmother took me to every movie produced for the silver screen. “National Velvet” was my favorite followed closely by “Little Women.” Years later she starred in one of my favorite movies of all times with Montgomery Clift (Elizabeth Taylor, not my grandmother), “A Place in the Sun.”

I was a mere tot when we started going to the movies. We always went on Saturdays, after Catechism, and it was an all-day event. There were always two movies---an “A” film and a “B” film---news reels, cartoons, coming attractions, and sometimes the theaters had contests and the theater managers would appear on stage before the main feature and would give away prizes. The theaters did not reek of nacho cheese, just buttered popcorn. We never won a prize but just going to the movies in those days was prize enough. Occasionally a celebrity appeared to promote their film.

During our movie days we lived in a large metropolitan area with many theaters and some movies played for long periods of time, especially popular films, i.e., any film with Elizabeth Taylor. I’m fairly certain I’ve seen every film she ever made and “National Velvet” was the beginning of my lifelong love of horses.

Elizabeth Taylor was certainly beautiful, but she had something else. Beauty isn’t enough. There are lots of beautiful people with bland personalities. The special ones, however, have charisma as well. The combination of beauty and charisma is life altering for the owner of those attributes as well as for the beholder of the one with the good genes. It was hard to determine which was more beautiful in “A Place in the Sun,” Montgomery Clift or Elizabeth Taylor. When they were on the screen together people stopped breathing. They both had that special beauty/charisma combination and that movie made people weak in the knees. They remained close until his death in 1966.

Montgomery Clift was bisexual and filled to the brim with sexuality. Rock Hudson was gay and tremendously macho and sexual on the screen. Elizabeth Taylor loved them both and they loved her. The scenes between these men and Elizabeth Taylor were flat out sizzling. Beauty and charisma seek beauty and charisma. And the rest of us just swoon. I didn’t know then that Montgomery Clift and Rock Hudson had sexual orientations that would not have been popular for the masses. I wouldn’t have cared because I adored them both, before and after learning of their inclinations.

The remainder of Elizabeth Taylor’s years after the discovery of Rock Hudson’s illness turned her into a fierce advocate for AIDS research in the form of powerful fund-raising to help the millions of people afflicted worldwide with the disease. She brought awareness to the disease and debunked myths and ignorance about what AIDS really is: a disease that can affect everyone regardless of sexual orientation. I heard on the evening news on the day of her death that she raised more money for AIDS than she ever earned as a movie star. That’s a hunk of change.

I have long sense gotten over movie star adulation. Partly it’s because I grew up and stopped such silliness but partly it’s because movie stars and other celebrities have been degraded with the advent of tabloid exploitation. Some celebrities soak it up and create outlandish opportunities for over-exposure while others hide to the best of their abilities. Some poor soul can be sunbathing in their private yard and paparazzi can photograph them from trees a mile away. This behavior existed when I was a girl but not to the extent it does now.

Movie studios were known to create elaborate untrue stories about their contract actors to create public personas that would appeal to middle class America. To control rumors about Rock Hudson’s homosexuality they made him marry a woman. (It must have been hard for movie stars to stay on their pedestals.) But today, we as fans have created monsters of our favorites by purchasing and viewing what the tabloids have to offer and we demand more. We have ruined our celebrities.

I’ve never been one to dwell on the good ole’ days. Times change and we change with them. I don't look longingly at some of the crazy things we had to cope with “back then.” I might find them amusing but I’m glad we no longer have the difficulties we had when I was a child. When emails are circulated about “the good old days” I remove my rose-colored glasses. But one thing I’m sorry about is that the mystique of our celebrities is gone forever.

We can now see them dirty and unshaven, climbing all over their mates and sometimes even videos of them having sex indiscriminately. We see them in their underwear, scratching, their guts hanging out and their cellulite exposed and watch them staggering down sandy beaches drunk and/or stoned out of their minds. We watch their mistreatment of waiters and sales clerks and wives and husbands and nannies and children and strangers. We gasp at their exposed private parts winking at us as they exit limousines, and we have in-depth details of their anger management issues, their poor parenting, their divorces, squabbles with parents who use and abuse them, and frankly, I don't want any of it.

Elizabeth Taylor lived a “full” life and we all knew about it but that’s all. We knew about it. It wasn’t thrust in our faces all day long and we didn’t see her cavorting with her indiscretions all over the planet. There seemed to be more dignity to the rumors about their lives. No one outside of Hollywood knew Rock Hudson was gay until he announced he was dying of AIDS, because being gay during the era of Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor was a career killer. Fortunately, today it’s so much easier to have a full career regardless of sexual preference and I believe we have grown up and can accept the fact that actors act and their personal lives have nothing to do with their film roles. When I watch old Rock Hudson movies I completely buy that he’s an adorable hunk in love with Doris Day. I was thrilled to learn Montgomery Clift was bisexual, though it never did me any good. Sigh.

Today if a celebrity gets a hangnail it’s on the news all day and we can’t go online without pop-ups showing a magnified view of the infected finger. I’m so happy that Elizabeth managed to mostly escape this craziness to the end of her life. She certainly did get a lot of attention but somehow it remained dignified.  

Many years ago a friend was vacationing in New York and happened to hop on an elevator already occupied by Elizabeth Taylor and two women. Though bigger than life on a movie screen, Elizabeth was tiny. She was dressed casually but nicely. She wore makeup but not much. She looked young and her freckles were exposed making her appear even younger. She smiled warmly and genuinely because my friend was probably drooling. The elevator was electrified by her presence. Sparks bounced off the walls.

The ride was short and Elizabeth Taylor left the elevator with her friends all too soon. My friend’s memory of the event is that when she first stepped onto the elevator and saw Elizabeth Taylor standing there, Ms. Taylor smiled at her. This froze my friend in place making her unable to turn around and face the doors, as is the custom when riding in an elevator. Instead, my friend stood gaping at Elizabeth Taylor full on until they reached Elizabeth’s floor. Only then did my friend move and turn around to watch Elizabeth exit and walk down the hallway with her companions.

My friend moved forward to stare at them and the doors almost closed on her head. She forced the doors to remain open and watched Elizabeth slowly walk out of sight. My friend was enraptured by the fact she was so close to celebrity royalty but then Elizabeth was gone and my friend regrettably allowed the doors to close. She was uninjured but it wouldn’t have mattered because she was forever grateful she had personally gazed upon (and was given a sweet smile by) the most beautiful woman in the world.

R.I.P. Elizabeth.

www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com

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Countdown to Oblivion

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We can’t do a thing about earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, cyclones, and other natural disaster events except prepare for them. We can do some prevention related to forest fires, floods, and other similar natural disasters. We can do a lot about nuclear meltdowns---we can wake up and stop using nuclear energy.

An obscene amount of money has been spent on the development of nuclear power in an effort to end our dependence on fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are political and have always carried a depletion factor. There’s just so much of the stuff and we aren’t making more. When it’s gone, it’s gone. So we have turned to nuclear energy.

Powerful foreign people have control over the production of fossil fuels and treat us little folks like puppets on a string. This includes coal, which is plant-based and over great periods of time hardens into rock/coal. There’s lots of coal but its extraction gets more and more difficult and is not as cost effective as it once was. “Peak” coal theorists predict we have about 120 years left of known reserves. “Peak” oil theorists say many major oil fields are already at their peak and others will be there in 10 years. 

Nuclear power plants do not depend on fossil fuels and the cost of nuclear power also isn't affected by fluctuations in oil and gas prices. It is efficient and when properly operating is clean and dependable (properly operating being key), but it does have---and always has had---operational problems. Mining and purifying uranium and other materials isn’t a clean process. Transporting nuclear related materials to and from plants poses a huge risk to populations on the routes to and from the plants. Once the fuel is spent, we can’t throw it in the trash. It continues to live its deadly radioactive life for almost eternity. It’s ripe for use by terrorist groups and dictator led governments as horrifically simple weapons---just open the spent fuel container, spread it around, thousands die. 

Spent nuclear fuel will decay to safe radioactive levels---but it takes tens of thousands of years. Low-level radioactive waste requires centuries to reach acceptable levels. An accidental or deliberate spread of such waste is possible, probable, and predictable. It’s predictable because: what geniuses considered building nuclear power plants on earthquake fault lines? I’m not a scientist but had they asked me I would have suggested a different location. In fact, no location in Japan is safe since it is practically the earthquake capital of the world. But that’s just me.  

There are around 440 commercial nuclear power reactors operating in about 30 countries. They produce about 14% of the world's electricity. That figure varies depending on who is pushing a particular agenda. One would think that with that many reactors they would already be running the world’s energy. It’s depressing to think we need hundreds more to run the entire planet’s needs. And there are many being constructed as I type and many more on the drawing tables around the world. Thousands of nuclear reactors. The most are being built in China. When is the last time you purchased a product from China that worked properly?

In addition to energy producing reactors we have hundreds of “research” [shiver] reactors and reactors on ships and submarines. In fact, we have a tidy number of disasters just waiting to spill and spread around the world. Enough to kill every living creature on the planet and keep the planet dead until the supernova.

Some of these little annihilation bombs are in the hands of unstable people and unstable countries that we should be terrified about. Some countries are careful about waste storage, others not so much. If the highly technologically savvy Japanese have containment problems what hope is there for less enlightened countries? Or countries not known for quality production? [China]

Chernobyl didn’t have a “special” containment building, just a regular building. That’s like storing nuclear waste in my garage. Some are operated by evil regimes and shouldn’t have reactors period. Some are located in geographical nightmare regions like Japan and California. Some are frighteningly close to terrorist groups. Some are not currently active but retain the guts of their former operation along with the waste. Reactors produce TONS of waste that is stored forever around the world. We ordinary folk are scolded if we use plastic drinking bottles. There’s a major disconnect somewhere.

Many years ago the very smart citizens of Sacramento, California, voted to close their nuclear facility (Rancho Seco) 25 miles southeast of the city. It’s now a lovely park but I have no desire to frolic in that park. When I drive by the towers on my way to visit family and friends in the area I instinctively speed up.

Chernobyl, the king of nuclear disasters to date (but might move to number 2 if things continue to fail in Japan), was poorly designed and poorly operated. The plant required constant frenetic human attention to keep the reactor from malfunctioning right from the beginning of its operation and it didn’t help. I looked at all the countries currently operating nuclear power plants and discovered there is no safe place to live in the entire world if we end up with thousands of these plants. Not the Amazon, not Iceland, nowhere. We have too many already in play and we’re getting more.

Even if we stopped operating all reactors this afternoon, it would take hundreds of years for us to tear them down and process their parts and their waste. Then thousands of years after that for the waste to diminish its harmful properties. And we aren’t turning them off this afternoon. [Note: but many cities are demanding we no longer use plastic grocery bags for our groceries because they take so long to break down at the dump. Really? That's what we should be worried about? Is that some sort of malevolent misdirection?]

There are other sources of energy. Some yet to be fully investigated but that are quite promising. There’s also interest in more localized energy production rather than trying to illuminate an entire region. Small areas can generate their own power needs according to local resources available to them such as thermal energy, wind energy, etc. And here’s a novel idea. We can actually use less. In fact, reduced use should be mandated. I would be happy to have a black out at my house every day if it meant saving energy for everyone. Those with special needs would be exempt from blackouts. Most of us do not need energy while we’re sleeping or at work. Why not have meters that we can operate and turn our energy sources off when we’re gone or sitting by a window reading a book? Each person responsible for their own energy use. Astonishing!

I live close to San Francisco. What a magnificent beauty. At night as we cross the Golden Gate Bridge the view takes our breath away. Yet why are all those buildings lit up like Christmas trees? Shouldn’t they be turning off those lights when they leave each day? Yes, cleaning crews need lights but can’t they turn them off and on as they work through the building?

When researching on the Internet I found many alternate sources of energy in the form of fuels for vehicles as well as industry and homes. There are too many to list here but most of us know the various ideas being tested and researched. Some are very promising but expensive. Nuclear power plants are also very expensive---in oh-so-many scary ways.

But don't take my humble word for it. Take a peek at the Internet sometime to determine if nuclear power plants are still a safe option for living creatures. If still convinced they are the way to go, chat with someone from Japan. Better yet, someone from Chernobyl. I think there may still be a few alive to discuss the pros and cons of nuclear reactors.

To put all of this in perspective for those of us living our daily lives, I heard this alarming analogy on TV. It is said that every computer will crash. It is not “if” they crash but that they “will” crash. They have a shelf life and can be affected by use and all sorts of evil things including those pesky viruses. We should all have our files backed up on a regular basis. I didn’t do that for years and one day my computer died and I lost everything including photos, documents, addresses, applications and programs, and it was just awful. Years later it happened again but I had a backup external drive so I got a new computer and transferred my “stuff” back without missing a single thing.

That scenario was likened to nuclear reactors. It isn’t “if” it will happen, it’s “when” it will happen. The backup safety measures are not as reliable as computer external backup drives for our home computers. Nuclear backups fail almost the moment they are used and not all containment units are created equal. All reactors have procedures and buildings in place for when they do fail because---they will all fail given the right circumstances. Hence, they have containment buildings. We know how well that worked in Japan and Chernobyl.

On another note, here are some insomnia figures on Nuclear missiles. And don't for a minute think the creation of nuclear reactors doesn’t hold a secret path to nuclear missiles. Ask North Korea.

·      Russia 13,000

·      
United States 9,400

·      France 300

·      China 240

·      United Kingdom 185

·      Israel 80

·      Pakistan 70-90 [Yikes!]

·      India 60-80

·      North Korea 10 [Double Yikes!]

·      Estimated Total:  23,375

That’s an estimate and there are those who believe more are hidden and secretly manufactured that we don't know about. Some scientists believe it would only take 1,000 nukes to kill every living thing on the planet. We have over 23,000. When the 440 nuclear reactors go offline because all their operators die from the missiles, then the reactors will all meltdown. If there are any humans or animals left from the missiles, which is unlikely, they would soon die when all the reactors fail. The missile list doesn’t include dirty bombs loaded with radioactive materials, which can be carried in a backpack and detonated with ordinary explosives, say, in a shopping mall.

If you’re falling asleep at your desk in the afternoons, take a peek at this list. It’s better than strong coffee or high-energy drinks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors

Note: The title of this post was inspired by Countdown to Zero, a documentary about nukes and our unstable political world. Stop worrying about whether to toss your coffee grounds or compost them. We have bigger disposal issues at hand.

“The nuclear age is over.” Dave Kraft, director of the Nuclear Energy Information Service.

I hope he’s right.

www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com

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Ring of Fire

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We have become savvy to the ways of Mother Earth and most of us respect her power over us. How could we not? Thanks to technology any disaster that affects us is available for viewing with the click of a button. With that we have learned how to behave during emergencies, natural or otherwise.

Thursday night I had one of my bouts of insomnia and finally got fed up with tossing and turning so I decided to flip on the TV and watch something mindless. That often helps me fall asleep. Not that night. Unfortunately, the TV programming I had on from my previous viewing was a news network so the rest of the night I was glued to the TV watching amazing videos of the huge earthquake(s) and subsequent tsunami(s) in Japan. As the hours wore on people started sending their cell phone videos and camera videos to the news networks. The fact I viewed all of this in the comfort of my bed snuggled under a comforter with my dogs did not escape me.

Sometimes when I watch a disaster such as the one in Japan (there have been so many in my lifetime, natural and otherwise) I walk around my house and look at my “things” and wonder what items I would miss. It goes without saying that I would like to survive a horrific event and that I would want all of my family, friends, neighbors, and pets to survive, but once we have confirmed the safety of all of us we take a look at what we’ve lost. Some things we must consider are practical: banking records, food, money, BILLS, how to return to work without a car or money to pay for transit, etc. But what happens after the basic necessities is often painful and tough to overcome.

When I survey my home I never think of my furniture or my appliances or clothing. Yes, that would be difficult to replace and life would be hard without things to maintain daily life but what I would be very sad to lose would be my little collectible items from the family. Each generation entrusts the next to care for these family “heirlooms.” Some of the items are small plaster casts of my kids’ handprints from kindergarten, little porcelain tea sets my mom had as a girl, framed photos, house plants I’ve had so long I don't remember where or when I got them but they are almost like pets to me, and my sanctuary in general, my home. If we survive being thrust out of our homes our very reason for living becomes an incredibly long struggle. I know this because of the amazing coverage we can view for days and weeks and months after a disaster.

I remember many years ago a huge fire devastated the Oakland hills here in California. Weeks and months later as people were interviewed they shared stories of survival and they were grateful beyond imagination. But after the initial horror of the event had subsided and they began working to find housing and something to wear besides their pajamas they started talking about the little things and were so thankful when a fire fighter would present them with a found wedding ring or a photo that had somehow survived. Not one of them jumped for joy because someone found their TV. I remember one woman when allowed to visit the site where her house once stood spent hours looking for her children’s baby books. I never learned if she found them but looking at the debris that used to be her home I had my doubts.

Another woman said that about a year after the event she was still dealing with so much to get her life back and one day she remembered something she lost and she broke down and couldn’t function for a few days: her grandma’s sweater. I know how she feels. I have my grandma’s sweater and I still use it on cold mornings. She had been battling so much but the loss of the sweater put her over the top. 

Though my grandmother was a small child during the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco the dialog surrounding that event stayed with the people in the Bay Area for years. She grew up knowing so much about it she sometimes spoke as though she remembered the events personally when actually she just remembered her family’s observations because she had been a mere toddler. They talked about it so often with family members, neighbors, and friends that it became her event. She didn’t live in San Francisco but she lived in a near-by city close enough that the family felt the quake and the area she lived in also sustained damage and deaths and injuries. She would be amazed that today she could watch such an event on TV.

Over the years I’ve gone through the house and affixed earthquake putty to many items (since I live in an earthquake zone) and I’ve tried to carefully place things that might hurt us, but what I do to protect my home for an earthquake would not help at all in a flood or a fire. So it comes back to the power of the earth again. We can only protect our lives to a point but the earth can open up and swallow us and how do we prevent that? We don’t. But we can stay alert and do our best if and when something happens to us and watch out for others. We may be safe but what about our neighbors?

Technology helps us to survive and helps us to help others survive. We all complain about the invasive aspects of technology but when something like this latest earthquake happens we flock to our TVs, cell phones, and computers because we must see how our fellow humans are managing. Even those of us living the events find the strength to video our surroundings or take photos or tweet updates or share information on our social network sites---as the event is happening all around us. By doing so we provide valuable information and guidance to others to either avoid the areas in trouble or inform authorities. Millions of eyes protect us all the time. For all the crappola we endure with our invasive society it’s times like these we appreciate what we’ve created and that we are connected.

And yet, with all our human wonders designed to help and protect us, the earth trumps us every time. It’s powerful and relentless and it moves where it wants to move and our oceans wash us away like ants. That’s what I came away with Thursday night. From a helicopter we look like ants and the fairly calm yet powerful water surges just kept on coming and washed so many away. But we’re a brave species and resilient and we do recover. We’ve done so since the beginning of time.

I wrote this at 4:30 a.m. PST with the earthquake and tsunami news in the background while sipping coffee in my pajamas. My neighborhood was safe and quiet and everything was calm and peaceful. My region here in northern California was encased in a huge fog bank and it was eerie on that particular morning. But for another day I’m fine. I truly appreciate each and every day but know I’m on borrowed time---as are we all. 

www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com

[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Blog series began in March 2009.]

Baking A Memory

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Last week I wrote about baking with my grandma when I was a little girl and more recently with my adult daughter. But not just any baking---a perfect pie which starts with a perfect flaky piecrust. The week before that I wrote about fishing with my dad. While working on those posts I remembered other special days and in particular one with my son. So here’s another piece from my walk down memory lane---for now---but it fits well with the other two. I think these memories are coming to me because I’m 65 and after completing The Great Photo Project of 2010 (26 photo albums, 20,000 photos, over 100 years worth of family pictures) I’ve been lost in nostalgia.  

A few years ago my son mentioned he would like to learn how to bake a cake from scratch. He noticed that at work many of the women brought in beautiful homemade cakes for birthdays but that the men brought in items they picked up at the grocery store. He wanted to know why? Talk about a can of worms. “Why” indeed!

I decided not to give him a five-hour lecture on why I thought the men brought purchased goods and the women brought homemade items and instead told him I would teach him how. His birthday was right around the corner so we decided for his birthday he would bake his own birthday cake from scratch. He lives a couple of hours away but I emailed him and asked what items he had for baking. He had quite a few kitchen basics because though he hadn’t done any baking he is quite a good cook and enjoys cooking.

So for his birthday I purchased what everyone needs to bake a cake. He had nothing in the way of baking things so I filled a huge gift bag with all sorts of goodies: cake pans, flour sifter, spatulas, mixer, measuring cups and spoons (just in case), and you name it! Then I selected a decadent chocolate cake recipe with a ganache icing from the Internet and purchased all the ingredients and plopped them in the bag and hit the road. He took the time it took me to travel to his place to get his kitchen ready. (No easy task.)

I mentioned in my pie baking post last week that I’m not a baker but that I can bake cookies, scratch cakes, and a killer pie. But I have friends who could open bakery shops so my modest baking doesn’t get me very far. My first scratch cakes were awful. I remember one in particular.

I was married and we were invited to a party. I was asked to bring dessert. I had a number of cookbooks and found a nice cake recipe and made the thing and put it in a beautiful cake carrier I purchased just for that occasion and off we went. It sat on my lap and as we drove it sort of started coming to life. Remember that old horror movie in the ‘50s entitled “The Blob”? I couldn’t believe my eyes. We weren’t driving on a bumpy road and the car wasn’t overheated but I was losing my cake. Frankly, when I had finished the thing I wasn’t that impressed but I certainly didn’t think it was going to attack me. I insisted we stop at a grocery store and I ran in and bought a proper dessert and tossed the blob in the trash.

I had no idea why that happened but I think it was a number of things. Primarily I believe it was my lack of cake baking talent, because I figured out much later that it wasn’t thoroughly cooked, the icing wasn’t properly prepared, and the list goes on. Over the next few years I baked more cakes and read about cake baking and finally was able to produce a fairly decent cake.

I arrived at my son’s house with the huge bag of everything needed to bake a cake and we both decided we would tackle the project the next day, which I believe was his actual birthday. It took almost all day because we visited and discussed baking and took our time. It was a wonderful day and we ate the entire cake. Of course! Since that time he has baked more cakes and has taken them to work to share.

After thinking about these memories, including the two posts before this one, it occurred to me that these experiences were woven around specific activities but the stories were all about creating special memories with those we love. And they were so special that they stand out from many other memories. A lifetime of memories, good and bad, stay with us, but a few just sort of pop out as special. Sometimes when we create a memory task that’s difficult the memory takes on even more special intensity. It’s funny that while writing these three blogs I remember them so clearly as if they were yesterday. My mind has stored them in a “special” file.

Our cake turned out great. He did most of the work and I sat and advised. Creating a piecrust takes demonstration to get the hang of it but cake baking is more straightforward and he did great with just comments from the sidelines.

Many of my favorite memories in my life are so simple. Yes, we went to theme parks many times. Yes, we went to lots of school activities, we had many large family Christmas gatherings, and we did it all. But little odd things that we did over the years seem to hold more significance to me. I guess it really is the simple things in life that makes us happy. Spending time with a grandparent is wonderful. Spending time with my kids doing something old fashioned and basic is very special. I bet they’ll remember all those little moments instead of the times we went on vacations. I’d love to go back to the theme parks but I’d give anything to spend a day baking pies with my grandmother.

I have her wingback chair sitting in front of a sunny window in my living room. I used to see her sitting on the chair in front of a window in my mom’s house when she lived there and she would knit and crochet and read. I sit there now and do those same things and it means more to me than I can express.

Which reminds me, my daughter now knows how to knit and crochet and my son is interested in knitting scarves. I see more memories coming my way!

www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com

[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Blog series began in March 2009.]