Grnemae's Profile

I am married, retired and enjoy many activities with my 4 children, 9 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren.  I am lucky enough to have all of them living within a few miles of me and enjoy sharing fun times with them.

I am addicted to both books and TV.  I enjoy watching sports but I am not a participant.  I do enjoy fishing with my husband (he tells me that it is a sport).  

I have a weakness for chocolate (with nuts- any kind of nuts) and for salty snacks, especially popcorn.

I have two very spoiled but loveable Shih Tzu mix dogs who think that they, not I, run the household. They are fun to have around and provide lots of love and laughs.

I am an avid professional hockey fan and have season tickets to our local NHL team-the Minnesota Wild.  I also like to participate in fantasy hockey - last season I had 4 fantasy teams and I managed a fantasy league.  What a blast - I had a 1st place finish, a third place finish and 2 fifth place finishes.

I collect minature ladies shoes and cowboy boots.  In addition I have a nice collection of minature Native American pottery and other Native articles.  I also look for and purchase unusual Nativity scenes which I have displayed in my home year round.

One of the most rewarding things that I do is to make colorful blankets for a local children's hospital.  I have a special needs grandchild who has spent lots of time there in the last 9 years.  When I first started to vist I noticed that the blankets were all white and boring, so I took it upon myself to add some color to their rooms.   I have been told that some of my blankets have gone home with little patients because a very strong attachment was formed.   I am now making patchwork blankets.   I am having fun designing and preparing the squares for that.

I like making braided book marks as well as key chain holders and beverage coasters from plastic canvas plus I like to embroider.  I watch lots of TV and like to keep my hands busy while I am being a couch potato.  Most of these items I donate to the residents and staff at 2 nursing homes.

I am a volunteer with a charity organization that supplies reading material to deployed members of the military.  This is very rewarding as the individual soldiers are always so appreciative of the books that are sent to them. 

As far as my reading likes - I have always loved historical romance novels. I am intriqued by stories set during the Civil War as well as books about the 1800's in the western states. Since joining PBS, I have found several authors that were previously unknown to me and my reading tastes have been vastly expanded and I have started to read books in genre that I never thought I would ever be interested in exploring.  Thanks PBS.  Thanks to the urging of some my local PBS members I am now  totally addicted to game swaps.  

I have several favorite historical romance authors - Connie Mason, Leigh Greenwood, Cassie Edwards, Linda Lael Miller, Jodi Thomas and Catherine Anderson. 

When an author writes books as series, I prefer to have all the books in the series before I read any of them, even when that means waiting, sometimes years,  to acquire all of the books.  Then I like to read the books one right after the other and become totally absorbed in the location and the characters.