Category: Wordy Wednesday

My mom is a lovely, lively, mischievous, loving, kind, empathetic, funny, good, God-fearing woman. She often has more energy than I have and sometimes she gets around better than I do.

As evidenced by her climbing this tree with the other kids in the playground and I’m like, “Ugh – I have to lift my leg?! No thanks.”

Side note: the kids around her thought it was so cool that a grandma was climbing trees with them. I, on the other hand, nearly had a heart attack and could only think of one thing, “Please don’t fall!”

She’s 78 in this picture – she’ll be 80 this year and she hasn’t slowed down. She still gets around on her own, she lives on her own, she mows her grass, she climbs her attic stairs, (I made her promise she could only do that when someone was with her), she walks on the treadmill every day and she takes good care of herself.

She’s always been this way. My mom is fiercely independent and won’t ask for help, not unless she really needs it and if she’s asking? She needs it.

She’s creative and old school – the only thing my mom ever wanted out of life was to marry her soul mate and to have children.

Check, and check.

She’s had to make a lot of adjustments since my dad died – not just mentally, but to learn how to live by herself and be by herself. Mom married dad straight out of high school and she’s never lived on her own. Now, being on her own is all she knows. I won’t say it’s been easy for her, I know it’s been hard, and continues to be hard, and let’s face it, will always be hard and most certainly different, but she’s strong and her faith is what kept her from falling apart.

I’m so proud of my mom. She’s kept going when I know she wanted to give up. That’s hard and it’s admirable.

I’m grateful for her every day and I wish I could spend more time with her, I know she gets lonely. But the time we do spend together I never take for granted because life is short, life is precious and I plan on savoring every last minute.

I love you, mom.

This was Easter.

This is me showing my family the mop I use to clean our hardwood floors.

Please do not think I enjoy cleaning house. I do not. At all. If we could afford a maid, I would 100% hire a maid. That’s not true, I would WANT to hire a maid, I would not hire a maid. And allow her to see my dirty house?? I would be one of those people who clean my house before the maid comes over. And that would be a waste of money. And I don’t like to waste money.

But I digress.

What you don’t see in this picture is Kevin, unbeknownst to me, taking pictures of me showing off my favorite mop. Like I have a favorite mop. This was the first time I have touched that mop in literally months.

Don’t judge me. I mean, you can judge me, but I won’t care.

Our boys are not shown in this picture but they were also seated around the table listening to me gush over my favorite mop. We got to talking about household chores and I was curious to know what chores the boys were responsible for.

Blake cleans their bathroom, (they share a bathroom, LeRoy has his own bathroom. Which, by the way, that’s Leroy on the left), and Brandon cleans the kitchen and the floors. But he hates cleaning their hardwood floors, which prompted to say, “Hey! let me show you the mop I use. It does such a good job.”

Did I mention this was Easter?

We’re such party people.

I’m pretty sure mom was thinking the same thing.

I smile when I see this picture. Because I’m the LEAST Betty Crocker-ish person, (defined as a person who likes, or even tolerates, cleaning, cooking – anything remotely close to being a traditional housewife – Kevin can, but will never, confirm that), you will ever meet. And yet. to look at this picture, you would think, “Wow – this woman is Mistress of her domain! She clearly knows her cleaning tools.”

Proof that you can never trust what you see in pictures.

Our “baby” turned 31 this month.

I’m sorry – what?! Wouldn’t that make me and Kevin …….. OLD?!?

Seriously. How does this even happen? I look at him and still see my chubby, restless, blonde cherub.

He was 8 lb, 8 oz big when he was born. I could barely push his overly big head out. I would push and push and push and the little booger would slip back in once I took a breath.

Little stinker.

Once he was born, he didn’t make much noise and we worried about him for a little bit. But once he got the gunk out of his lungs … he CRIED. Boy has a strong set of lungs on him.

He was the kind of kid that when he got tired, NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING would distract him from sleep. He wouldn’t take a pacifier, but he wanted his blankie, he was my Linus baby.

He hated to dress up in costumes, like Halloween. He didn’t (and still doesn’t) like candy and then forcing him to participate in a holiday where you get candy … yeah – we tortured the kid.

We found this board in the back of his closet. In his old bedroom. Where he hasn’t slept in over 10 years.

This was for a school project.

(See the picture of him dressed up as a soldier? I told him to look mean but he was CLEARLY annoyed – haha!)

And that picture of him with his blankie? I still and will forever, see that face whenever I look at him.

We have truly been blessed with some great boys.

Who have become some pretty awesome people.

Do you know what Diamond painting is? It’s basically paint-by-number only instead of paint, you stick beads, or “drills”, onto a sticky printed canvas. You can get them for dirt cheap on Temu.

(Or – at least you could back in the days of free shipping – now, with the Tariffs, shipping is more than your order!)

This is me, “painting”, (I use that term loosely because come on, I’m sticking beads on to a canvas, not sure it’s really classified as painting), in our cargo-trailer-converted-into-a-camper wearing my “Lost at Last” shirt that I only wear when we go camping. I’m sitting in front of our bed, which is on top of kitchen cabinets Kevin bought at Habitat for Humanity for dirt cheap.

We saw this idea on one of the hundreds of YouTube videos we watched from people who had also converted a cargo trailer into a camper and thought it was a cool idea – our “garage” is under the bed, on the other side of these cabinets. We use the cabinets to store our clothes and the long drawer you see to the left of me is one big cabinet that we use for our dirty clothes.

(Side note: I ended up selling that diamond painting in my mom’s craft booth).

I made everyone wear matching pajama bottoms on New Year’s Eve. Me, Kevin, the boys, my mom and LeRoy. I’m the one wearing the ones that are too short. Come to find out, later, I had given my mom the Tall ones and myself the regular.

Oops.

I’m surprised the kids went along with it. I had forgotten to hand them out Christmas Eve and the boys just scoffed and pretty much said they wouldn’t have worn them otherwise. But come New Year’s Eve, they wore them. I think they didn’t want to disappoint me.

They’re such good boys – erhm – men.

We played a lot of games, ate a lot of food and watched The Day the Earth Stood Still. (Meh)

I ended up driving my mom home because she’s 79, it was pitch black on New Year’s Eve, at nearly 1:00 AM and you never know who is out on the roads at that time.

And now, here we are – already starting the FOURTH month of 2026.

STOP! Too fast, too fast! Slow down!

We will blink and we’ll be back in matching pajama bottoms, playing games, eating food and watching movies on New Year’s Eve.

Again.