My Alphabet of Gratitude...Letter S is for Stories

I love a good story. I love to read them and I love to listen to them being told. I enjoy hearing stories from anybody who wants to tell them. I enjoy reading stories to my children, some of them numerous times! I love the stories that the old folks like to tell about their youth and their experiences. I adore the stories children tell and the way they tell them. I love to talk and tell my own stories as well as hear yours. I enjoy Facebook and all the tidbits of people's lives and stories that I get. I can remember loving to read from a very young age. I couldn't wait to go to the school library and pick out another book. My favorite series from about the third grade was the Boxcar Children. Oh my goodness how I loved to hear the teacher read a little part of one of the books every school day. I could see everything she read, I could hear it and even smell the things she described at times. I was hooked. I had to read more. Anything and everything I could get my hands on I read. I would still be that way today if it weren't for the time constraints I have. So many other obligations I didn't have as a child! My children do know that every once in a while I will find a book that I just can't put down. They always seems to understand, mostly because they are readers and story tellers themselves. I love to read everything from fiction to reality, fantasy to horror. There is nothing like a good book to take me away from it all. Growing up in the south I heard many stories as I would travel around visiting people with my step father. I learned a lot just from listening to what other people had to say about their lives. I enjoyed their funny stories and their sad stories. I remember when I was 17 I decided to drive around the country to see as many states as possible. I would put audio books in the cassette player and away I would go, enjoying the scenery as I enjoyed a good story. I remember my Mom and I driving to move to Utah later that same year. I was reading The Stand by Stephen King as we were driving through Nebraska and Kansas. The people in the book were crossing through Nebraska and Kansas the same time I was...it was kinda creepy, particularly because it was a story told by the master of crazy weird himself, Stephen King. I remember being scared, and I loved it! So I say thank you to all of you who have shared your stories with me, I thank all the authors who have written the countless books I have read for sharing their imaginations with me. I thank you all for taking the time to listen to my stories. Like I said before, there is nothing like a good story to take me away from it all for a moment, to be transported in time and space to a different reality then my own is a very therapeutic thing at times, as long as I don't overdo it!