Celebrating Mothers - Mom

Welcome to Celebrating Mothers - Day Five

Today is my final tribute post (although I still have a post planned for tomorrow) and it is about my mom.

Beth

Beth was born in Texas, and lived in Massachusetts, California,and Virginia among other places. She had her tonsils out in Africa while living in Turkey. As an air force brat, she moved - alot. She was always skinny and her thick brown hair was always short. She has one slightly older brother and she was often mistaken for his twin. She liked to talk. She moved back to Rhode Island permanently just as she started high school (as an aside, she lives in Massachusetts now, but she still thinks she lives in Rhode Island).

My mom and dad met at work. She was 19 when they married and they had me a little over a year later when she was 20. My brother came two years after that. My parents just celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary.

There's about a million adjectives that describe my mom: kind, generous, sacrificial, sympathetic, giving, friendly, creative, artistic, selfless, hard-working, and on and on and on. I can think of a hundred instances where she dropped what she was doing to help me finish a project or paper or to take me some place I needed to go. She made my baby food and sewed my clothes. She was one of my Girl Scout leaders and baseball coaches. She drove me to ballet lessons and went to every tennis match. She was always supportive, always willing, always cheering.

She's an incredibly talented person. She makes beautiful cakes (many I've shared on this blog) and has a certificate in decorative painting. She paints furniture and murals. She sews, knits, scrapbooks, etc. (Sound familiar? Yeah, she gave me her crafting ADD)
More importantly, she's an incredible kind person. She has a soft heart, especially for those on the outside. She has a tendency to befriend those who are new, different, or lonely. Currently, she volunteers with women who are overcoming addictions. My mom doesn't judge or mock.  She empathizes and encourages. 

My mom loves her family - her in laws, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, husband, children, and dog.  She's always making someone a cake or going to a recital or graduation.  Everyone loves her back as well.  When I was in Girl Scouts, many girls told me I was lucky, and that they wished she was their mom.  I couldn't agree more.  If she wasn't my mom, I would want her to be! 

She brought my brother and me to church every week.  She made sure that we were in a great youth group and that we were raised to be godly people.  She set a great example for us both as a church going Christian and a person who lives out Christianity in every way, every day.

My mom gave me lots of ummmmm.....interesting....qualities of hers.  For example, you can find both of us up to our eyeballs in craft projects the night before a major event (holiday, party, wedding, etc.).  She also gave me the talent of procrastination - she bought a book on procrastination and never read it.  And there was that book on organizing your life that got lost in a pile of papers. Both of us have a hard time being realistic about time and how many projects can actually be accomplished in a limited amount of time and both of us looooove bonus projects that don't make any sense! 

My mom loves people, loves adventure, loves color, loves travel, loves dogs, loves cooking, loves Lifetime movies, loves learning, loves God, loves memories, and loves me.  I love her back.  She's my best friend and the best mom in the world (sorry, but it's true).  If I'm half as good a mom as she is, I will be very happy!
 I love you, Mom!

If you'd like to celebrate a woman in your life, please blog about it and add your blog link to the MckLinky below!