IT WAS MOM'S BIRTHDAY TODAY

i was going to write this great blog today. i dont know where my days go but i always seem to run out of time or energy or both. oh well there really is no way i could write about how i feel about our mom and do it justice so i will just write about some memories i have of her.

dad would leave for days on business trips selling insurance.  he had to have a car and that would leave us without. dad came home from one trip and mom had bought her piano, two chairs, a used car and had gotten a job to pay for them.  jack and i went to aunt mary's every day to "play." mom got pregnant with paula soon after that so it didn't last long.  that piano was so worth it.

what was so funny was that mom never would fight with dad.  she was always the dutiful wife--up to a point apparently and then she quietly did her own thing.

i told this story at mom's funeral. when we lived in the tri-cities we would have air raid drills.  we lived next door to hanford and so were a prime target. mom was worried about it.  so were a lot of people and you would see big heavy machinery in people's backyard's building bomb shelters.  one of mom's friends commented on how mom had lost all this weight.  (she didn't need to lose any weight, but anyway) it was from all the heavy labor she had been doing.  she had decided that she would dig her own bomb shelter under the house with a pick axe, shovel and our little red wagon to haul the dirt back to the easement that ran behind our property.  she took a slightly different route each time so that she wouldn't wear a track in the lawn.  i have no idea why the back of the house didn't fall in but i do remember helping and burying some tadpoles down there.  it was eight feet deep and about 8x10 big.  with all the crazy things i have done over the years i can not beat that one or even come close.  she just wanted to keep us safe.

the older i get the more i appreciate mom.  she was amazing and so well loved.  uncle sharm called today for her birthday.  her brother's and sisters loved her so much.

i remember giving her a glider ride for her birthday up in issaquah.  she was so excited to do something in a plane that uncle sharm hadn't.  he had never been up in a glider.  i kept asking the man if it would be safe because she was the only mom i had and my sisters would kill me if anything happened to her!!!

i remember her endurance and sacrifice.  she taught piano lessons for $2.00 an hour and then went to $2.00  a 1/2 hour to pay for our braces. it was a $1,000.00. a piece even then.  she traded piano lessons with laurie sombody  for ballet lessons. she was amazing. she set a goal of one item of clothing a week---a dress, a skirt, whatever for us girls and her.  she was an incredible seamstress.  she worked full time.  she  would come home fix dinner (because we would clean but never cook) and then go into her bedroom and start to sew till time for bed.

i loved showing her my new homes. it was so fun.  it would be so fun to have her and les come up and park their trailor  in our front yard.  we would go out to visit and they would have the kids out for waffles.

when mom came to help after i had a baby i would hide the ironing. she would iron everything--ellery's gym shorts for heaven's sake!  she would always try to get me to rest.  i never would cause i would only get to have her for a little while and i didn't want to waist a minute of it sleeping. i never did get enough of my mom. i always thought there would come a time that we would be back in utah and we would have thursdays together.  maybe she would even slow down enough to take a nap together like g'ma would make her do!

i still try to do things to make her proud of me.  i am so grateful that i am sealed to her for time and all eternity--that will be just about enough time for me to enjoy her.  i am so grateful for every way she blessed my life.

Le Anne