Mothers make the world a better place.

I watched two cousins bury their father today. I was touched to see a large number of my family present. Realized I come from a family of good people. Good people who forgive. The service was ‘a thinker’. Made quite a few people cry for a person who made a lot of people cry. The son of the woman my uncle (do I say that if he’s divorced from my aunt?) was living with stood and eulogized. He spoke of the demons of ‘the bottle’ and of the fist fight that he had with my uncle. He didn’t candy coat anything. However, he ended on a high note. Pretty powerful stuff. Forgiveness is key.

Eek, that was sorta grim, sorry about that. But you are what you eat right? And well, I’ve been thinking too much about losing loved ones lately. Soo much so that I forgot a fellow blogger’s birthday. April, your tag is a little late. I apologize. This has been an emotional week and instead of scrapping and blogging…..I reverted back to my pre-blogging days. I snuggled up in a blanket, drank too much wine, stayed up late and wrote my feelings in journals and notebooks. Can you believe I now have eulogies (and I mean flipping good ones) written for my parents & my Nana?? Who knows if I’ll ever be strong enough to stand and read them. But they are done. Am I weird???

Eek, sorry….again too grim.

Onto something more cheerful. Mother’s Day is tomorrow. And I have a stellar mother and one fantastic surviving grand-parent; my Nana.
I look up to both of them.
-My Nana tells the greatest stories.
-Mom passed on her love for shopping.
-Nana makes killer gingerbread cookies.
-Mom was the ‘cool mom’ everyone came to talk to. For a year or so, I was a miserable little bitch. Then I realized that I shouldn’t be jealous of all the kids who were close to my mom. I should be grateful that she was mine.
-Nana can build things. She’s sooo independent. Always wanted to be a carpenter. For a while, she asked for power tools and such for her birthday and Christmas. Now that she turned 85 this year, we had to come up with something else because had we bought her anything of the sort, we know she’d be building things.
-I suspect Mom is more excited about our house than we are. Just today during the funeral service, she whispered over “We should head over to The Greenery after the service. They just re-opened and have oodles and oodles of house decorations.” Mom’s specialty is buying ‘Raina & Jimmy things’ to decorate. I swear she knows me more than I know myself. She shows me things I never would have picked up in a million years and then I see the beauty in them. Jimmy gets nervous when I shop with my Mom.

I’m a lucky girl. I have phenomenal women to look up to. Granted, I didn’t get all mushy about then in this post. But it’s cause I’m all mushed out.

I leave you with some pictures. Cause nothing makes a post more reader friendly than picures.


Me and my mom at my bachelorette party.

p.s. There were three bachelorette parties out and about that night. May I just say there was no excuse for the raunch we were subjected to. Mom told me she was very proud that we had such tasteful means for making me money. And seriously, I KICKED ASS in the bar. I made more money than the other two brides put together.

me, Mom & Nana 

My camera was passed around between about 7 different people during the whole wedding day. This picture popped up on my camera. It isn't posed, it isn't the best, we were just hanging out watching the photographer working with the boys. No clue who took it but pretty grateful that I have it.

p.s. There's about 30 minutes left of April's birthday. So technically, I'm not late. It's all about Pfab for the next 30 minutes and my tag my not be soo belated.
Cheers!!!