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Happy Mother’s Day! Part 1
Well, Mother’s Day is off to a great start. Well, it was . . .
I hit the kitchen a little over an hour ago to start the official MDay dinner. On the menu for tonight? Lasagna! I use a modified version of the tomato sauce and lasagna recipes in Craig Claiborne’s cookbook. I had just finished chopping up the vegetables when I remembered the card! I rushed upstairs and grabbed the card from it’s super secret hiding spot (on top of my dresser) and rushed back downstairs to sign it and put it on my wife’s computer. Just as I was about to sign it, I saw the fine print: Happy Birthday!
Tail between my legs, I slinked back upstairs and confessed I had gotten the wrong card. Fortunately, my wife laughed hysterically. Besides, I gave her flowers yesterday. She could come home and catch me naked on the couch with Sandra Bullock, and flowers would smooth things over. Probably for Sandra too . . .
Anyway, the sauce is simmering now. About three, I’ll cook the meat and add it to the sauce, let it simmer some more, then start assembly and baking. I usually shoot for six PM, but my family expects me to sometimes overshoot to seven. If I remember, I’ll take a picture and post it as HMDay Part2.
Again, Happy Mother’s Day!
Published in Marriage
Well, being a mother is the result of a birthday….
That was funny, and reminded me of this birthday card my sister sent me one year – it was an old fashioned vintage card and said “thinking of you”, when people used to send those….she said that’s all she had – she thought it said Happy Birthday. We both cracked up. You are already ahead of the game in that you are a man that can cook, and a man that reads recipe cookbooks and has the where-with-all to combine two good Italian recipes! Very sweet- just don’t burn it!
Thanks for a lovely memory of my wonderful mother-in-law today. She was an regular donor to all those annoying snail-mail solicitations which send you a package of return address labels, or a calendar or shopping bag when you send them a few bucks. I think she liked getting the mail, as much as anything else.
Some of the outfits she donated to would send her half-a-dozen, or a dozen or so, cards in return.
Grandma didn’t give a rap if it was a birthday card, an anniversary card, a “so sorry for your loss” card, or any other sort of card. She’d find one with a picture she liked on the front, strike through the printed greeting, and write her own. It came to be quite the family joke, and a bit of a “thing.” We call it the “Grandma” card, and have kept the tradition up, always including a card of the “wrong” kind for major family celebrations.
Yes, I have had that kind of greeting card mishap as well. That is an opportunity to further personalize the card with a manual strikethrough and correction :). No verbal confession required.
I need to add the following.
My wife went to the grocery store today. At the bottom of the shopping list, I wrote “Mother’s Day card”. When she came home, I asked her if she got the card for me. She replied, “No, because it wouldn’t be a surprise.” I told her I expected her to buy one and rub it in. She replied, “I’ll wait until tomorrow when they’re on sale.”
Nothing say loving like something from the oven:
I made sweet breads for the three Mom’s in my inner circle, My Mom, My Mother in Law, and the mother of my children. Linda & I delivered the one of each (Chocolate & Cherry bread (rear three), and Almond bread (three in front)). Fortunately our mom are still alive, abate with some health issues, but able to enjoy their breads.
The cherry chocolate was fabulous.
My wife requested steaks on the grill. She really, really loves me.
6 of my Mother’s 8 surviving children, three of her grandsons, and three of her great-grandkids took Mom to Churchill Downs yesterday. A favorite place and event for her, (and us, TBH). Nothing like the smile on her 90 year old face when one of the horses she bet on comes in. I wrote my own sentiments in a blank card, (which made her cry) and gave her some cash for betting. I really could not think of anything she needed and she always says there is nothing she wants. Despite the rainy weather we were warm and dry under cover. I am blessed to have her still. I am also blessed that my wife, and the mother of my children, has no problem with telling me to go enjoy a day with my family. Our kids (with Dad) bought her some furniture for the deck, and the two youngest kids made dinner. It is after a day like yesterday when I realize I am rich beyond measure, and my desires for more are selfish.
EDIT: Not that my desires for more are magically gone. Just days like yesterday put those desires in perspective.
At first glance I thought they were the world’s biggest cookies….
Well, I tried but failed to post a picture of my lasagna. I don’t know what it is, but sometimes pictures I take with my iPhone get rotated 90 degrees, and nothing I do either with the camera or my picture sofyware will turn them right-side-up.