Hi, I'm Sharon Romine,  This is my personal website, where I share whatever I want to share, be it my beautiful grandchildren, how I feel at that particular time about my husband of 37+ years and whatever is on my mind, which can often be a lot!

My husband and I, as well as two of my children and their families, live in Sitka, Alaska. Sitka is the MOST beautiful city in the world, and is located on an Baranof Island in the SE Alaska area, well known for the very best in Salmon and Halibut fishing.

We live at and manage a 5 bedroom, 5 bath lodge on the waterfront, called Sharon's Cabin. www.sitkacabin.com. It's located straight across from Mt. Edgecumbe Volcano, with a wonderful view and frequent wildlife visitors, including many many eagles, sometimes otter, often sea lions and the occasion whale and harbor dolphin. Oh, and in the winter, we are often visited by a family of martin, a small ferret-like animal.

I am also a graphic designer, marketer, writer, vacation rental manager and a grandmother. A few other things, too, if I took time to think about it... I've been alive a loooong time, so have lived a varied life.

Anyway---I was born and raised in Lake City, Florida (small town, America), by a family of farmers, writers and musicians.  I say this tongue-in-cheek, because by this I mean my Saturdays growing up were spent down at my Uncle Shelly's garage, where the neighbors gathered around the old wood stove to play guitars and banjos and sing country music. 

My mom was always writing and creating.  If it wasn't a song for them to sing, then a book or something. So I grew up with an acceptance of  the beauty of creating images with words. 

My husband was originally born in Moultrie, GA, but moved to Florida as a child. Him and I were childhood sweethearts, married young and kind of grew up together.  During our 36+ years of marriage we've spent ten years in Saudi Arabia, which we loved.  Lived right down on the Red Sea, learned to scuba dive and became instructors, which led to us running a scuba instruction and retail business for over 11 years (part of that in Saudi and part in Florida), and eventually led us to the small community of Sitka on Baranof island in SE Alaska. 

During our time in Arabia, we had the opportunity to enjoy extensive traveling, including Greece, England, a touch down in Germany during  Christmas (wonderful!) and even a couple of weeks in Bolivia, where my husband and I had the chance to cross a mile-wide river, straddling  old railroad tracks (after making sure the train wasn't coming) and a challenging hike through the jungle (beautiful!).  That part wasn't planned,  but goes down in my "stories to tell my grand-kids, when I'm stranded to  my rocking chair". 

Speaking of stories... Commercial scuba diving brought us to Sitka,. On arrival I noticed there was not a weekly advertiser like you see in most towns in America and decided to find a way to start one.  I really enjoyed doing the monthly newsletter for  our scuba instruction business and looked for a way to combine that kind of writing with the needed advertiser.  The cumulation of that idea became known as the Sitka Soup (so called, because you never could tell what I'd put in it!), and at the time of me selling it was the most read paper in area.

The most popular part of the "Soup" was my weekly editorial, where I shared the ups and downs of life, no matter how painful the sharing of it was,because I figured if I was going through it there were probably hundreds out there having to deal with the same thing.

My "Ramblings" as my column was named, became so popular, that by request, I published a collection of them in 1996. See to the left. If you're bored and looking for something to ready, I have many posted here.

We returned to Sitka in 2003, where I started working with Michael LaGuire, Sitka's RE/MAX owner/broker and got involved with helping him grow his vacation rental part of his business. One thing led to the other, to where I now have brought that under the umbrella of my business, Creative Connections.

The thing I enjoy most about this business is, not only the chance to meet many people from all over the world, but also to bring them together.

This weekend, I had a couple from Michigan, a couple with a two-year old from Florida and two families from California, making a family vacation together. I offer a continental breakfast, where I have everything laid out for them and they get in there and dig in, just like family and I have to tell you, seeing them all there together, it sure did warm my heart.

Anyway-off my soap box, will chat more later... my blog is to the left and that where I chatter on whatever. Drop a line, I love hearing from everyone! And... I'd absolutely love to hear form folks in or that have been in Saudi. I'm always looking for old friends from there. We were in Jeddah from 1976 to 1984 and returned 1987 to 1989.

That's my life, in a nutshell, as they say.... I enjoy chatting with folks from all over, so call me or drop me an e-mail!  Sharon Romine