Happy Mother’s Day

Welcome to my blog! I’ve been thinking about writing this for a while now. After moving to Wisconsin, I thought it would be cool to have a way to share what I’m doing in life with friends and family far away, and with anyone else who stumbles across it and is interested. I’ve always liked writing and thought a blog would be a new challenge, a creative outlet, and a place to share my experiences and the lessons I’ve learned from them. If you read this regularly, you’re going to get a wide variety of content: recipes, decorating tips, gardening stories, sewing projects, fixing and restoring my old house, and sometimes just stories or thoughts. I especially want to tell stories. This is a work in progress as I’m still learning about how to format with WordPress. I hope you enjoy taking this journey with me.

I want to dedicate my first post to my mom because I think she’s pretty amazing, and I wouldn’t be who I am without her. She’ll be the first person to read my blog posts, because she’s a great editor. She has been my editor ever since high school, when I would leave my papers on the kitchen table after I finished writing at 2 am, and she would read them in the morning and mark my mistakes so I could correct them before turning in the paper that day. But editing is not my mom’s only or most important talent.

My mom is also amazing at cleaning. She is the most thorough cleaner I have ever met. I don’t think she’s ever met a stain she couldn’t get out of clothes. She’s very detail oriented with house cleaning as well. When my family moved to a new house when I was a kid, a friend who was helping move furniture was excited to finally find dirt in the house. My mom was appalled. “Where?” she asked, disbelievingly.

“Under the refrigerator!” he laughed. Mom didn’t think that should count. Who moves their refrigerator out to clean under it before you’re going to move? Her skills have been a life saver for many friends and family when moving, and a couple of times when someone was coming home from the hospital with a weak immune system and needed their home extra clean. But mom doesn’t like being known only for being good at cleaning, so I’ll share some of her other gifts too.

If my mom were to have a superhero name, it would be The Finisher. Unfinished jobs or projects are the bane of her existence. Once she starts something, she has to finish it. All other activities must wait. And almost anything can count as an unfinished project: a book she’s reading, a show on Netflix, other people’s unfinished projects. They all must be finished! If you have an unfinished project that’s weighing on you, all you have to do is tell my mom about it and she will help you finish it. She’ll call you and ask you how it’s going; she’ll offer to come help you finish it; if she has a key to your house, she might let herself in when you’re not home and work on it for you. This is not limited to her children, she has been know to do this with friends and neighbors too. She has completed the final hemming or binding on many of my sewing projects. I made a comment to my mom that my house is like Heaven because I can have several different projects going at the same time and decide each day what I’m in the mood to work on. She cringed and said that sounded like the opposite of Heaven.

The last of my mom’s gifts that I will share with you here is one she’d rather no one know about. She might actually deny it. My mom has a huge heart. She lives to help those she loves and make their lives better. She will say that she doesn’t really like most people, but if you do make it into her circle of friends (which isn’t all that hard), or if you’re lucky enough to be in her family, her loyalty knows no bounds. She will go out of her way to help with any need she sees, and she’s really good at recognizing needs. She remembers everyone’s birthdays, their favorite flowers, colors, desserts, or Bath and Body Works scents. She’ll be there to help you move, paint, clean, plant a garden, hem a prom dress, organize your basement, take care of your children, or anything else you might need.

When I have crazy ideas like making my own wedding dress, buying a huge 120-year old house, or cutting 8 inches off my hair by myself, she doesn’t tell me she thinks I’m a fool (though sometimes you can see it in her facial expressions). Instead she helps me find the right fabric and pattern, spends hours removing wallpaper with me, or cuts the back of my hair that I can’t see. Even though she may not understand or agree with all my ideas, she supports me and helps me make them a reality. This Mother’s Day weekend she is at my house, where we spent Saturday moving yards of dirt to make a big flower bed in front of my house that will both be beautiful, and create a slope away from the house to prevent water from coming into the basement. I’ll tell you more about that later. That is why my mom is the best mom in the world, and why I would not be who I am or accomplish what I do without her.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the amazing mothers out there who make life better for those who are in your life.