I'm so glad some of you remember a lot of the things I do. Some of my most cherished memories are when my playmate two doors down (Ellen) and the girl our age (Mary) across the alley would play in a little lean-to playhouse built against the north side of Ellen's garage. They had a huge wooden sandbox. People don't like the tracking and what it takes to fill and maintain sandboxes, but I've got to tell you it was heaven on earth. The sandbox was under a slightly larger pergola. Over the pergola grew Concord grapes. How beautiful it was under the shade of the leaves and when the grapes hung down as we played in that sandbox. Sadly, Ellen whose parents had the sandbox died from cancer a few years back; we had been separated for years as she taught school and moved to Michigan. The other girl, we parted ways after kindergarten, and she went to the Catholic school. We made new friends and lost touch with one another. A few years ago I found her how? The internet but somebody must have given me some clue, didn't even know what her current married name was. I met her when I was 3. She lives in NC and is such a lovely person. I cannot remember the last time I saw her, before I was 10. We correspond regularly and share these precious memories. Right now I have heard that her husband is facing a terrible ordeal with cancer and his pacemaker; her health sounds good. Tears flowed from my eyes when I read that, and I need to answer soon. I didn't have a video camera, but one beautiful fall day, I walked the old neighborhood with my wide angle lens, walked up the middle of my street and back (there were low hills on both ends of that two-block long street), walked back down then around and up the alley we shared, then around and down her street, clicking all the way. I put the photos on a cd and sent them to her. She was so grateful for them. I'd never met her sister who was older and away by the time I met her, but she sent those photos to her sister, too. I'm so glad I did that. This is the same street from about the exact same spot and one of my photos from that day. The older one I took with my brownie Kodak when I was about 8. The second one was Oct 2005. My house was the one on the right that is yellow now (hard to tell the color) with a red roof and the white rails. Ellen's house was the first one on the right you can see, a grey house with red trim and grey roof. There was a small one in between that isn't visible. I presently live about 1/2 mile from there. The oddest thing is that apart from the cars, trees and a few cosmetic changes to the houses, it has changed very little. 55 years then and now.

To all who commented and are worried, the house was new to us in September and the previous owner planted many flowering plants, and a gazzillion creeping plants, so the front look okayish, except due to me woeful lack of knowledge on the subject of anything pretty, except runner beans! :) it is beginning to look a mess, as I don't know a weed from a deliberately planted flower :( I have some clues now as I discovered one part has plastic mulch on it and the weeds have grown on top of that! so I have now identified some of them, and I am busy tighing ribbon to the shrubs I like so I can identify them in the fall, when I plan to rearrange things a little! I do have nurstuium?? in the veg beds more by luck than judgement as my twin four year olds insisted on flowers for you mummy! and it has paid off they are covered in some small black fly thing and the toms next to it clear! oh and I think I may have planted a sunflower right in the middle of a patch of toms covered by netting! DOH! slap hand on head! thanks for you sugestions

I like to just make mine out of folded scrap paper. Start with a square and fold it in half at the dotted line: Then, with the fold at the bottom, fold the 2 bottom corners in, and slide one into the other: The tip is where it opens. Slide fingers in to open the pocket and insert your seeds. To close, fold over twice, and tuck the tip into the packet. It should stay closed now: Handy for trading, or when you see seeds in an urn at a gas station! If you start with an 8 1/2" square from a regular sheet of paper, you'll make a pretty large packet.

I would suggest Vermont Bean which carries carries both for a reasonable price.