A simple garden gift for Christmas that could be also created for Birthdays, Anniversaries and Weddings.

One of our friends in Callyfornia (thanks Arnold) sent me an email called a thousand marbles, in which it described an older man teaching a much younger person about the imporatance of time. He explained that a long time ago he knew that time was precious but to remind him he determined how many Saturdays he had left in his life to spend with friends and family instead of working at the office. This gentleman then took 1000 marbles and placed in a jar and each Saturday he would take one out and the remaining marbles would be a visual representation of his time left on earth. And if he was lucky enough to run out of marbles he then knew that indeed each future Saturday would be extremely precious...........

Well, I thought that was a great idea, however, doing the math, 1000 marbles would require a large container, so I modified it from a gardeners perspective and decided to use river rock and only one for each year that my wife and I probably had left on this earth.....with my father rockin and rollin at 86 I put enough rocks in there to reach 90.

I have one clear container with 18 rocks in it symbolizing the 18 years we have been married with a label on top which say's Cheryl and Glenn's Past with the following list .......... Great Memories, Good Times & Bad Times, Losses, Reflections and Personal Growth........we also have another conatiner with 40 rocks in it which is labeled Cheryl and Glenn's Future with the following list........Travel, Dreams, Goals, Anticipation, Possibilities.

Each year on our anniverary we will take one rock from the Future and place it in the Past and talk about what this past year has meant to us........these containers sit on our window sill for a daily reminder of what was and what is yet to come........this simple gift could be presented to anyone for their birthday, anniversary or new business venture.......an inexpensive gift with great potential......