To All the Mom's I've Loved Before

I feel that it is time to pay tribute to all the Moms in my life. I have had some amazing women influence my life...

My own Mother,

My mom is a very interesting person.

She has no inner monologue.

She says exactly what she thinks.

Sometimes this gets her in trouble,

mostly with my siblings.

She was raised with a father that was not very loving so that fact that she is one of the most loving people I know is really amazing. She is a very affectionate person, which is sometimes very hard for me because I am not. My mother shows her love in a variety of ways. She sews, cooks, crochets, and quilts, and the majority of the things she makes are given away. I have literally never seen her charge a single penny for anything she has made for someone. My mother has busy hands. I have never seen her sit still. If she is watching TV she always has something in her hands to work on. She has even been known to bring her crafts to church to work on during Sacrament meeting. She is the kind of cook that I wish I could be. She can throw anything into a pot and have it come out perfect. I hardly ever see her use a recipe. Her father was a baker and she inherited that skill and has tried very hard to pass that on to her children. She can make anything grow, inside or outside it doesn't matter.

She is the one that taught me how to cook, garden, crochet, clean, and love.

My Mother-in- law

What can you say about a person who has to ability to love you like you were their own?

I tell people all the time that my Mother-in-law is one of my best friends,

and I mean it.

She is one of the kindest and most loving people I know. She worries so much about her family. I have never seen a mother or grandmother that puts the kind of time and effort into her family that Carol does. She has show me kindness and affection that most people only receive from their own mothers. I am truly blessed to have married her son.

I am truly blessed to have her in mine and my children's lives.

My Neighbors

Lora is on the left sitting next to me and Cassie is on the right with the hat

I have two neighbors that I have been very heavily influenced by. One is my age and one is almost old enough to be my own mother.

(I said almost Lora, you aren't quite that old... yet.)

Lora is my mentor. She and I talk about the struggles we have and make each other feel better. She is watching her husband die, slowly. There is degenerative disorder that runs on her husbands side of the family that has affected three of the four people she is closest to, including two of her three children. She works full time at a job she hates, she comes home to a sick family and works full time there to keep up. She is the strongest person I know. I have never seen so much strength come out of a human being, and when I say strength I mean mental strength. She has an incredible capacity to touch the lives of others,

because she has an incredible capacity to genuinly care for others.

I really do think that she was lead to move here to be my guide and my mentor.

The other one is Cassie, easily my best friend in my ward. I do believe that our names have become synonymous with each other. I really do think that people assume that you cant have her without me or visa-verse.

Which is totally not true!

She is the first person I call when don't want to go to Relief Society alone. She is the first person I call when I want to go do something with the girls. She is my cohort when I want to do something nice for someone else but don't want to do it myself. She is the one I call when there is an emergency. For example, she is the first person I called when I put a knife through my finger. She came over and actually fed my kids the dinner I had been making while her husband drove me to the instacare. I am the one she called to take over her Sunday school class when she took her daughter to the emergency room to get stitches in her head. Our first children were due on the same day, I hardly knew her when I had my girls but within three months of the first time I remember talking to her we were spending all our time together. She takes my bossiness so well, and just dishes it back out to me. What is really funny is that we have very little in common, but that has almost made our friendship stronger. She is my strongest supporter, she understands when I am down and will sit and listen. She doesn't understand everything I go through but, she gets that sympathy isn't what I want but that I just need someone to listen.

These are the four women who have given me the most support over the years.

And this is why I love them!