About This Blog

When my mother reached a certain age and I would visit her for a weekend, the stories she told me on Saturday morning seemed to rotate around again by Sunday afternoon. I used to threaten to make her a checklist, with titles for each story, so she could check off each one as she told it. Then all she would have had to do was sneak a peek at the list each time she felt a story coming on. Now I need a checklist for myself, and therein lies the appeal of new "listeners."

The name "Velvet Sacks" represents soft, safe pouches in which to preserve precious things. Memories, for example. When I started to set up my own blog for the first time, all the good, clever names I'd thought of were already taken, so I hastily plucked the phrase "velvet sacks" from a poem I'd written years earlier. The name of the poem is "Reunion," and it holds a permanent place in the sidebar of this blog.

There's no particular theme to this blog. In fact, one reason I find blogging enjoyable is that I can write about whatever is on my mind at any given time: family stories, my dogs, books, music...the list goes on. But hard news? Not so much. In a way, "Velvet Sacks" is like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates: If you don't like one post, just spit it out and try another.