Past Ramblings
Breakfast at Grandmas
Strong Foundations
Grandpa In The Garden
Family Reunions
Halloween
Saturday Nights
After Sitka
The Gift

If you'd like to have 
Sharon's Ramblings 
in your newspaper, 
web page or booklet, 
click here to 
send me an e-mail.

Sharon's Rambling
Sharon Romine.com
Lake City-Online.com
Your Businessbydesign.com

 The lamp at the end of the couch casts a soft glow of light over Grandma’s hands as she crochets. I watch closely as she pulls the thin thread through the loop she just made with the small hook. “Tiny,” she says, “ your loops must be very tiny.” Looking at her neat chain of loops, then at mine, which were anything but neat, I felt like giving up, but once again, I tore them apart and started over.  That’s the only way Grandma would have it. 

Grandma was a tiny woman, about five feet at the most, if that, and if she weighed 90 pounds, she must have had a pocket full of quarters, everyone said. But I’d seen her do work that would put many a man to shame.  And, she was always teaching... I didn’t realize it back then, but now I see that many of her lessons had subtle lessons within them that were more valuable than the act at hand. 

I crocheted foot after foot of those tiny loops before she would teach me any other stitch. “You must have a good foundation before you start or you're just wasting your time,” she’d say.  The subject of strong foundations came up often. Be it making the bed or getting the garden ready for planting, she always stressed the importance of taking your time and laying the right ground work.

Many of these lessons on foundations were also learned at the kitchen table. It was here that I came at the end of a hard day at school. Resting my chin in my hands I’d sit and watch while she made biscuits. “The flour has got to have just the right mixture of salt, grease and milk or they wont roll up right,” she’d say. Then, as her tiny hands moved around in the bowl blending and rolling the dough, she’d ask me about my day and current problems.

This was where I learned about strong foundations and the importance of a job well done. Her house wasn’t fancy, but you could bet that her bed rarely had a wrinkle, not even the bottom sheet and her wooden floors were always faded with bleaching.

I learned to crochet quite well and even learned to make biscuits, eventually, although mine never have come out a smooth and light as hers, but more important than this, I learned to take time and think about what I’m doing.  Her basic principle of laying a strong foundation for all things has guided me through many a tricky minute when I’ve wanted to rush into the heart of something.

Whatever you’re building, be it a house, a marriage, or the morals of a child, take time and care with it. That child will need a strong foundation to fall back on when the world starts getting him down. Give them one that can withstand the winds of time.

Copyright by: Sharon L. Romine March 1993.