Happy Birthday Mom!

Ok, so I know I'm posting a lot lately but today was my Mom's birthday, and I thought that I would share this picture with you:

















That is my Mom at a very young age.

What are 10 things I like about my Mom?

10. My Mom is good with animals. She is good with all kinds of animals, including animals she's allergic to or hates (which will be explained below). She is good with horses, dogs, ducks, chickens, turkeys, chinchillas etc. Even if she has no experience with a kind of animal, she can handle it, as she showed me this past weekend, when she walked right up to Shinji's cage and woke up the usually grumpy shinji and coaxed him out of the cage.

9. My Mom has a tattoo. This means that my Mom is a cool Mom. My Mom's reaction when I showed her my tattoo 2 1/2 years ago was,'Wow, that's pretty!' Mom tries to get me to drink with her, even though she knows I don't like to drink, to get me to wind down.

8. My Mom is interested in crafts. I remember when I was little her trying to get me to sit still so she could show me how to sew or crochet or cross-stitch. She doesn't get to sew as often anymore as she used to when I was little, but has on several occasions asked me to bring up things to Wichita that I've completed so that she can see them. I can also be certain that she is interested in crafts because she does not think it odd that I like to spin yarn or that I wanted a loom for Christmas.

7. My Mom hates pigs. My Mom hates pigs so much that we have started a holiday/birthday joke about it. Every year my Mom's pig collection stacks up with more and more pig paraphenilia. We know she likes the gifts, however, as she keeps them stacked on top of the television in the living room.

6. My Mom is allergic to cats, but secretly likes them. My Mom is so allergic to cats that if one even slightly brushes her hand it will puff up to twice it's usual size. Yet she sat in my apartment this weekend and called out to Freya several times trying to make friends with her. This behavior is befuddling, but cute nonetheless.

5. My Mom doesn't give up on people she cares about. My Brother has been a mess from day 1, and even though he's an adult who hasn't quite learned how to take care of himself, and often takes advantage of others, Mom still asks about him every time I talk to her. She didn't give up on his education, even though it was a chore to get him to school every day, and hasn't given up on him even after 21 years of life.

4. My Mom is a great listener. There are very few things in this world that I wouldn't tell my Mom, which are things that I'm sure that she wouldn't want to know. I know I can go to her with just about anything and get an objective opinion from Mom about it. This is another thing that I try to emulate in my life, but will admit that I will not master until I can stop breaking into conversations with 'huh?'. Even if it's something that I think Mom wouldn't approve of, I know I can go to her if I need help out of a situation I've gotten myself into (this hasn't happened in quite some time).

3. Mom is very opiniated, and won't be told what she should think. This has been a part of Mom that I have tried my best to imitate myself as I've grown up. This is the part of Mom that won't give in if she believes there is something that she can do and is struggling to finish it.

2. My Mom really has done just about everything I can think a body could do, and aspires to do more. My Mom has been a Country music singer, a guitar player, a scuba diver, a software programmer for a multi-billion dollar company, a farmer, a convinience-store clerk, a secretary, a hairdresser, a tag-agency clerk, she crochets, she cooks, she rides horses, she raises all sorts of farm-type animals, she can operate construction equipment, drive a big-rig, and I'm sure I'm missing quite a few things in here. She doesn't let there be boundaries for her or walls to keep her from doing things, and each year I have something more to add to the list of things Mom can do other than being Mom.

1. My Mom makes sure that even though she lives in a separate state than her daughter, that she still maintains a strong relationship with her. I'll admit that I've had my squabbles with her, but Mom and I are always ok in the end. We have kept a special relationship that not every mother-and-daughter can have, we are also friends. Not the warm, fuzzy, hearts-and-roses type of friends that Moms and daughters often have, but the kind of friendship where I could go up to Kansas on a whim and drink strawberry daquaris or marguiritas (if I drank all that much) with her all night while dying our hair and staying up to talk about men like best friends would until the day broke.

Happy Birthday Mom!