Happy Birthday, Mom!
Thanks you for the following (obviously this list is NOT all-inclusive).
Including:
1) Working two jobs so that I could eat and have a roof over my head
2) being team mom for my little league football teams
3) taking me to see the U of D during Greek Week…you sneaky devil…
4) baking whatever cake I wanted on my birthday
5) making me drive 2.5 hours from college, and then immediately turn around and drive the 2.5 hours back, just to return a movie. Tough love, KSM…
6) doing the “i feel like chicken tonight” dance with me
7) instilling in me your crazy, twisted sense of humor that either entertains or horrifies people
8) laughing at me when i damn near knocked myself out at church
9) working all day, coming home to cook dinner, then cleaning up after the savages that are your sons and husband. we love you.
10) buying me my first guitar
11) buying me my second guitar
12) bursting into tears at Waters Field when you thought you lost me, but then found me after the Herndon/Vienna football game
13) teaching me the joys of mexican food
14) teaching me how to cook said mexican food
15) teaching me how to drive a stick shift car - in your pretty-new prelude - that i probably grinded the crap out of the gears on
16) always saying “i love you” after every phone conversation
17) listening to me prattle on about non-important drivel and not rolling your eyes
18) listening to me struggle with some of the hardest decisions i’ve ever had to make and offering your advice, or just your attention
19) not getting mad at me for never learning “money for nothing” on the guitar (a condition of said guitar’s purchase)
20) buying me a nose flute
21) knowing that i would love said nose flute
22) coming down to visit and taking part in a silly blogging photo challenge (that’s my mom’s tongue on the street, y’all…)
23) passing on your love of reading to me
24) passing on the ability to be graceful one second, and a complete klutz the next
25) dimes
26) not laughing at me or getting mad when i got my ear pierced when i was 17
27) knowing that by not laughing or getting mad, that i would remove the earring within two weeks
28) not letting me take the percoset prescribed to me when i broke my wrist because it “tylenol will do just fine, and that other stuff is serious business”
29) passing on your hazel eyes, wavy hair, and ability to be sympathetic to many sides of an issue
30) reading this site
31) never letting me see you and pop reallyfight and yell at each other
32) always letting me see you and the old man discuss things and hug and smooch
33) never giving up on me
34) always approaching life with a positive approach - even when things suck big time
35) learning how to text message me
36) busting me for lying when i said i went to school and scored points in the volleyball game - - - I was in third grade…
37) always making spaghetti when I’m home
38) being the most caring, responsible, courageous person that i know
39) being a tech geek
40) listening to metallica, ray charles, phish, ac/dc, chubby checker, big head todd and the monsters, squirrel nut zippers, beethoven, elvis, b.b. king, and sooooo much more
41) loving american idol
42) watching tv and making fun of the people on it
43) talking to yourself
44) laughing at yourself
45) keeping dad from killing me a few times
46) showing me how a real relationship works
47) playing h.o.r.s.e in the driveway
48) trying to ski where KSB and I went, wrecking, and getting stuck in waist-high powder
49) giving us the finger when we took your picture while you were stuck in the snow
50) never letting more than a week go by without a phone call
51) sticking up for the “step-children” when C.A.L. starts in with her nuttiness
52) never cussing until you turned 50 (and then it was just “dammit”), but letting me paint with a wide variety of profanities
53) thinking that split pea with ham and bacon soup and a grilled cheese sandwich is the best food in the world
54) taking me to get my nerdy nose cauterized cuz it used to bleed all the time
55) laughing at me
56) laughing with me
57) always being there when i need you
58) being my mom
Happy birthday, China. See you in a few hours…
-KS