Alright Mom, its your turn! We hope you have a great day and we are so excited to see you in a few weeks. Here are 53 interesting, funny, and cool things about you to celebrate this birthday. I am doing a lot of this off of memory alone so hopefully it is mostly accurate.
1. She needs to be more careful where she keeps her estrogen pills. Funny story. Dad accidentally took one of them recently and was up all night having anxiety attacks about silly things.
2. Hard work? Bring it on. She is one tough cookie. I don't think I have ever seen her in a fully relaxed state.
3. She really loves celery and canteloupe.
4. She grew up on a real working farm in Idaho.
5. She milked 100+ cows, baled entire fields of hay, and herded cows every morning BEFORE breakfast. Or at least that is what I was led to believe as a young girl who always wanted to sleep in.
6. She once took part in a high school sit-in in the early 70's to protest the ban on girls wearing trousers to school. Its probably the most rebellious thing she has ever done.
7. She had a lifelong dream of learning how to dance. Dad gave her tap shoes and dance lessons for her 30th birthday and she fulfilled her dream and went on to be a terrific dance teacher to hundreds of kids and adults.
8. She is unwavering in her standards and values.
9. Long before it was cool to be into natural homegrown healthy foods, she was utilizing her own garden, grinding her own wheat, and staying away from overly processed foods.
10. She is one HOT grandma.
11. She has been an exercise enthusiast her entire life.
12. She gave birth to TEN children. Five boys in six years. Need I say more?
13. She raised us all without skipping a beat. Even with Dad traveling so much for most of the time when we were all small.
14. She wasn't afraid to use her trusty wooden paddle to keep us all in line.
15. I would love to find out that she has a secret sweet tooth and a hidden closet full of chocolate.
16. Her regular walking pace could match an Olympic speed walker.
17. She practices what she preaches when it comes to living a clean life.
18. I have fond memories of seeing her in her room kneeling in prayer by the side of her bed and studying her scriptures every night.
19. She is not shy about sharing her beliefs with everyone she meets.
20. If you want to make a good impression on her, wake up early, don't be lazy, and help with the dishes.
21. She plays a mean game of Rummikub, Phase 10, and Rook.
22. She makes the BEST bread, rolls, gravy, jam, pie.....and so on.
23. She once was driving the 'Burb while nursing (it was okay back then) and had a tire blowout on the freeway. She was able to slow down and steer with one hand to the side of the road. Wow.
24. She tells the best stories about growing up on a farm.
25. She has always been extremely generous with her time and talents to help those around her.
26. I can always count on a Sunday night phone call from her to check up on me and my family.
27. She has dabbled in lots of different crafty things and makes the warmest quilts.
28. She has this thing about hoarding lots of cereal. You can find large quantities of it in lots of places at home.
29. Much to Dad's surprise, she is learning to love the game of golf.
30. She always displayed our silly school projects and cheap gifts in her glass curio cabinet in the nice room.
31. She has always been very frugal and is perfectly content to live without the latest gadgets or fashion trends.
32. She has never been a big fan of having pets.......especially in the house.
33. She has a thing for Irish dancing. After learning that she had some Irish blood, she felt a special kinship to Michael Flatley.
34. She dreams of traveling throughout Europe.
35. She is not afraid to speak her mind.
36. Don't bring anything of questionable content into her home. The house is rated G.
37. She loves children and has quite the following of grandchildren and kids from church who love to listen to her stories and eat her yummy homemade food.
38. While most of her friends are relaxing and enjoying their free time, she is busy running a large distribution business and doing a lot of the work herself.
39. She is not a big fan of organized medicine and prefers to take the natural approach.
40. She once had an herb that would cure anything and professed her love for its healing powers. Josh, with his chemistry background, took a look at the ingredients and burst out laughing because of the high concentration of alcohol. This was mostly funny because she is so adamant about staying far far away from unhealthy things. So much for ending her day with a little nightcap.
41. She has great genes when it comes to height. She passed them on to most of her sons and we are still keeping our fingers crossed that a bit will trickle down to our kids.
42. She goes by Darlene but growing up, everyone in her family called her by her middle name, Susan, Sue, or Susie.
43. The dating advice she gave to me and my sisters was to just slap a boy if he tried to kiss us or "get fresh".
44. She has really good posture and always reminds everyone to stand up straight.
45. She taught herself to play the piano.
46. She knows how to drive a tractor, school bus, diesel truck, motorcycle, and pretty much any piece of heavy machinery.
47. She has always been supportive of Dad. They are very unified and respect each other so we were never able to get away with much trouble.
48. She is the first person I would call if I was in trouble or needed something. I know that she would drop everything to give me advice or help me out.
49. She loves to feed the men in her life. It is one of the ways she shows her love, by taking the time to bake good, hearty food. She has set a very high standard for their wives and for her daughters to follow. Rice-a-roni? Mac 'n Cheese? Forget about it.
50. I cannot imagine how much grief and worry we have caused her over the last 30+ years of our lives.
51. She loves huckleberries. And knows the best spots to pick them.
52. While other kids were eating "sugar cereal" for breakfast every day, we had oatmeal, germade, and cracked wheat. I love these now much more than any kind of cereal.
53. She is the best MOM and grandma in the whole world!
We hope you have a fantastic day! Thank you for always taking care of all of us and putting so much time and energy into teaching us by your strong example.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment