Noni

Today marks the anniversary of the loss of one of my favorite people ever.  My grandmother or Noni, as we called her.  I was fortunate to have my grandparents as neighbors throughout my childhood, and although it's been seven years, she remains with me in the best possible way.

Since this blog is about making things, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that she was a maker of a great many things.  She was a quilter, a cook and a gardener.  And she was famous for turning anything I was working on to see the back side.  She reviewed my embroidery and the floats between stitches and my seams and the bottoms of the pie crust.  She took pride in doing things well.

Raising these two little girls, I find that I want them to learn things that I learned from her.  To take pride in what you have, regardless of how much it cost, to keep your feet off of the table, use egg yolks in your pasta dough and to be hardworking and strong.

So I'm going to scrub the ears of my girls to make sure no "cabbages" are growing back there, vigorously brush their hair into tight pig tails.  I'll teach them to grow flowers, make ravioli and feed family meals that reflect how much we love them.  We'll pick jelly bean rocks from the "beach," play UNO with conviction and do headstands in the middle of the living room.

And they will know that I love them because I demonstrate it.  Like Noni.