53 Things I love about my mother

53 Things I love about my mother

1. The way she will stop anything and really really listens to you
2. That she half raised all the kids in the neighborhood
3. That she let me stay home from school even when I wasn’t sick just because she could tell I really needed a break
4. That she and my dad always believe what their children tell them. (It is a policy that kept us from lying to them, made us quickly rectify it if we did and earns our respect to this day)
5. She always respected my privacy and gave me enough space
6. I LOVE that I have never heard her say a negate thing about my father
7. Her sudden and contagious love for horses
8. I have never had a question she couldn’t answer
9. No matter how old I get I sill think my mom (and dad) and the smartest people I know
10. She is the most genuinely positive person I know
11. I love her testimony (She is a convert and when I was 13 or 14 we were on a walk and she compares life with out the gospel to the light at dusk right before it gets dark. Your eyes slowly adjust and you don’t even realize how dark it is until you compare it to the noonday sun.)
12. How she cares for everyone when we are sick (Not just caring for everyone but the specific way she does so)
13. Her understanding of color, it really blows the artistic side of my mind

Her cooking
14. A tomato sauce that makes me questions her Russian Jew roots and think she may be Italian
15. A risotto that could bring tears to your eyes
16. Butter tarts a prized family recipe
17. Her chocolate Easter eggs
18. Blackened Tomato soup
19. She makes a demi glaze that takes three days
20. Her cassata cake that she graced me with for my wedding
Due to my foodie interests and my utter devotions to my mothers cooking I must stop myself at this point or I will write all 54 points related to her cooking.

21. Her veracious appetite for literature
22. How many bazaar and interesting jobs she has had
23. Her array of very developed and under appreciated talents (Cutting hair, Sewing, Knitting, Laying tile, dry walling, laying bricks, Writing, playing the violin, piano and guitar, ability to teaching and did I mention cooking already?
24. The way she can see anything overpriced complicated or rare and figure out how to make it on her own and improve on it during the process
25. Her incredibly green thumb
26. Her uncanny ability to do over 100 accents
27. That she doesn’t live for her children
28. That when her and my dad have had lots of alone time that they tease each other like crazy and laugh their head off.
29. I love that she is up at the crack of dawn every morning to have some alone time
30. And that she eats breakfast at 8:00 lunch at 12:00 and dinner at 6:00 every day of her life
31. Not to mention she drinks about 5 gallons of water a day.
32. She knows how to milk a cow, pluck a chicken and grow all of her own food.

I love the quirky things like…..
33. She doesn’t drink anything carbonated
34. Hates all Mexican food (who does that)
35. Can’t stand even the smell of peanut butter
36. Will die believing navy is the new black
37. Had a strange obsession with highlander (the show)
38. Permanently lost her memory at 19
39. She’s been on a talk show
40. She can negotiate herself out of ant situation, or into any price
41. Says Puerto Rico with a ten minute long roll of her tongue
42. Lived in a bus for about a year
43. Talks to roses so they don’t prick her (something the owner of a nursery she worked at taught her and it really does work)

Her great advice
44. How to respond to comments about having too many children (“well, my children are very special” )
45. “The last 10% takes 90% of the time”
46. “If you don’t want a clingy whiny child that you are pushing away, love on then to the point that they push you away….even if it takes a while.”
my personal favorite….
47.“Everything people say is a reflection of them selves” (this really helps me not to take things personally and help the people who need it most)
48.“The hardest people to love are the ones that need it most”
49. If your husband starts doing annoying things like putting away socks in the cutlery drawer, don’t get mad it just means he wants a little attention” (soooo true)

50. The way she makes birthdays and holidays feel so special
51. That she knows the name and Latin name of every single plant and flower
52. That she makes a priceless and exquisite blanket for ever grandchild
53. That she never really liked children and even failed children’s theater in collage, was told she could not have any children and some how ended up being an incredible mother to 6

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We love you mom and are very blessed to have you as my mother and as a grandmother to our children.

Happy Birthday!

Love Rory, Anne, Dane, Liam and Finn