I was eight.

Our family was hosting one of the best people in the whole world, my Grandmother.

I was on my knees on the blue upholstered kitchen chair, asking every kid’s favorite questions, “What are you doing?” and, “Why’d you do that?”

Grandmother was exceedingly patient as she answered every question I asked. Finally, she asked if I wanted to learn how to make the cinnamon rolls that she was making for our family. I said, “Yes!”

And learn, I did.

Honestly, I don’t remember kneading the dough, using the rolling pin, spreading the butter, or adding the cinnamon and sugar. I didn’t roll them up and I definitely didn’t cut them. I might have put them in the pan, but honestly, I don’t know.

What I do know, is that she explained everything she did – and why. She told me what could go wrong and how I could make them in the most efficient way.

Yesterday, over four years since we lost her, I made those rolls. In my head, I could hear her talking about rolling out the dough, about having patience as I did so. (She knew I would need that advice.) I let them raise and then I baked them, topped them with a light vanilla glaze and gave one to my husband.

Apparently, I’ve never made them for him before… oops.

He asked if they were hard to make – I said they weren’t, just a little time consuming. He suggested I make them again.

I will.

There were other times that she visited us. On one visit, she made me a set of dishes out of bleach bottles and then hand painted beautiful purple pansies on them. Another time she brought a doll bed that she had made.

As an adult, I was still receiving amazing gifts: homemade oatmeal raisin cookies, delicious meals whenever our family would travel through her neighborhood, a soda can rocking chair, a “sofa” door stop and precious conversations. When I met Mr. Gorgeous, I wrote her a letter telling her all about him. She kept that letter. Several years later, we stopped to visit her and she pulled it out of her Bible and gave it to me – truly a treasure.

There are many items from my Grandmother — and from other amazing people that I value.

But honestly, what I prize most highly are the moments, the memories.

That afternoon when Grandmother taught me how to make cinnamon rolls is so clear in my mind that I even remember what she was wearing.

Weird, I know.

There are other moments, other memories that I love to look back on. The Saturday when my best friend’s dad made pancakes for breakfast, and the day when she and her mom taught me to make sour cream sugar cookies – with REAL sour cream, not the store-bought kind. When my second-mom taught me to sew. How my mom taught me to make the absolute best hot chocolate ever made. The way my other Grandma would sit in church and clear her throat to get my mom and aunt to slow down the hymns they were playing. When my Great-Grandmother let us kids wade in her ditch and play with the water strider spiders. The way one of my Aunt’s house always smelled of coffee and Baby Magic Baby Lotion.

We all have these kinds of moments. A friend of ours in Iowa came to church and told about her neighbor girl. One summer, the girl was old enough to be on her own while dad worked on the farm, but she was lonely and a little bored. She showed up at our friend’s house and asked what she was doing. Evelyn invited her in and told her she was making cookies. The girl asked if she could learn how. Evelyn obliged. Once a week the little girl knocked on her door and Evelyn conducted a cooking class for her neighbor girl. They made pies, cookies, cakes, bread, and other things. What amazing memories they made together – no wonder that little girl went there once a week.

You see, our world has become so tech centered that we’ve forgotten to keep creating moments – to continue making memories.

For years, I’ve believed that the key to making home a place to which people want to return lies within the good memories that those places — and those people — hold.

It’s true about churches, too, by the way.

Instead of playing on a tablet or a phone, let’s teach kids to make jam, to build a bird house, to change a tire, to plant a garden, to paint a fence, to sew a pillow – or to make cinnamon rolls.

On Wednesday, our son asked we could have cinnamon rolls on Saturday. Mr. Gorgeous and I, while at the store, bought a roll of “cinnamon rolls” – you know the kind where you peel off the paper, hit the tube on the edge of the counter, put hunks of dough in a pan, and then bake? Yeah, those.

After we came home, I started thinking about that summer afternoon when I was eight. I wondered if I could still remember what I had learned from that precious lady and I decided to find out. My Grandmother was a great teacher – and I felt unexpectedly victorious as my family inhaled a pan of Grandma’s cinnamon rolls.

While I don’t like to make resolutions, I think this year, I will set a goal of looking back and treasuring more of those kinds of memories. But more than that, I’m going to focus on helping others – my husband, my family, my students, my church, and my friends – create amazing memories of taking adventures, learning things, laughing, and being with amazing people.

In 2018, let’s make memories with the people in our lives, shall we?