Happy Birthday MOM!! 71

I thought since mom's birthday card is still sitting here on my desk with her name and city, but no street address and her birthday is TODAY, I'd better use the mainstream form of communication and feature her on my blog. This is mom and dad about 3 years ago, and they look just as good today as they did then. See. This is them at 2 houses later with my boys recently-ish.
A few things about my mom:

• She likes to write things down

Even though she may never see the "one of her millions" of notebooks again or scraps of paper or know who it was about or when it was, she's always writing EVERYTHING down. I know in one way or another all her notes are eched out in her mind because of this.

• She will always tell the long version unless you specifically ask for the short, then you get the barely less long

She is an awesome story teller. You can sit and listen to her stories forever. I remember listening to her tell me stories as a kid, and they envelop your imagination and take you wherever your mind will go. I see that same affect when she now tells stories to my kids or my nieces and nephews, or their kids.

• She wants to see her kids be happy and would do all she can to help them be happy

After years of this type of sacrafice this might eat at a person, but I want to acknowledge that I know that she did a wonderful job to try to make her kids (and more) happy in life. This is a huge burden, but one that I am extremely thankful for. Just knowing what she had and would have sacrificed when I wanted the perfect dress that she would go through the entire process to sew, or whatever endevor I wanted to pursue, she would go to extremely great lengths to get me on my way, only to have me change my mind, and on and on. Just knowing of that sacrifice, no matter what the outcome is or was, that in itself is inspiring.

• She can pretty much do anything and do it well

She is a "Jack-of-all-trades, master of all". That pretty much sums it up. She can do anything, it's pretty amazing, and she can do it really good. Well, if anything doesn't include working the noon hour in a fast food restraunt. I spent hours of my childhood watching her do -- whatever it was, sewing, quilting, baking, cleaning, weeding, painting, making anything and everything, writing, talking, playing the piano, etc... I remember when I was maybe 4, I would sit in one of the "clothes baskets" (they were actually big plastic garbage cans I think, piled with clothes, hmmm this is sounding like me today, but I assume they were her mending, what do you expect with 9 kids) and I would sit and watch her sew for hours it seemed, and I'm sure I yapped her ear off the whole time, but I learned about every crafty trade I know from watching her.

• Also, she loves my dad

They have been married for over 50 years, had 9 questionable kids, and 30+grandkids, and who knows how many great grands, they've had money, lost money, had lots of houses and businesses, she's told us how many of each quite a few times, but I still don't remember, they've been through a lot together and have stuck close together through it all. I love her for that and more. Happy Birthday mom, your card's in the mail (well maybe on Monday).