Mother Dear, I Love You So

Before I get into this- a minor apology for not giving you any Monday Holiday Updates. Today's National Caviar Day, in case you were wondering, by the way. And tomorrow is National Ice Cream Day, which may be the best "3rd Sunday in the Month" holiday ever created.

NOW to more important matters...The thing about making a birthday blog for my mom is that it's ridiculously more difficult than it should be. See, I am a fan of images. You might not be able to tell that from my ridiculous wordiness in every entry ever, but I am. And my mom doesn't love having her picture taken. In fact, in every year on our hard drive, this is the closest thing we have to a "happy Birthday, Mom!" image.



I suppose, in a way, the picture's very fitting. One of the things about Mom is that she enjoys her family almost more than she enjoys herself. I know she loves to garden, photograph, read, cruise, sew, sleep, and other activities. But Mom spends a lot of her time cooking, cleaning, keeping up her calling, and listening to me, Emily, Emily, and sometimes even Mark prattle on forever. We're really not that interesting of conversations, but she knows it makes us happy.

Yeah....My Mom is the cool mom in my group of friends. They tell and retell stories about things she's said or done, they let me go watch movies or whatever with her, and they envy her ability to not just be a cool mom, but an awesome friend. I've had more than one serious conversation with certain friends as they try to figure just what makes our relationship so close. I think it's just my mom is that awesome she can manage it...somehow.


I'm not precisely good at these "birthday blog" things, especially when there aren't a lot of photos to use (and absolutely none in existence Mom wouldn't delete that I could make smart remarks about). But some things you should know about my mom- she's funny, smart, patient, beautiful, wise, and likes breakfast for dinner and cottage cheese on her toast. She can't play Mario Kart, but could whoop your tail at Mario Party. She makes the best lava cakes in the world, sings her own additions to songs where the composer wouldn't dream of putting them, and is currently painting her closet off-white.

Mom has a lot of friends, a lot of talents, and a lot of virtues. She's made decisions in her life that place her near the top of my "hero" list every time a church activity necessitates me to create one. And when I have kids, they'll go to her house to make sugar cookies, drink chocolate milk with too much chocolate, see the most amazing Christmas decorations in the world, and call her Grandma Margaret.

"Mother Dear" can be found in Primaries everywhere