How You Shine

A Very Happy Mother's Day to all you fabulous Moms out there, today and every day!

Doesn't this Nikki McClure card just warm your heart?  I love her art which she cuts with an x-acto knife.  She makes calendars, illustrated books and cards and just recently had a retrospective at the Bellevue Art Museum.  She is a favorite out here in the Pacific Northwest.

Today I am basking in love from my husband and son.  I am enjoying being a mom so much and I have my own wonderful mother to thank for showing me how well it can be done.  I wrote to thank her for a few of my favorite memories.  Below is a selection:

• Thank you for that amazing mermaid halloween costume you made for me in first grade - still my favorite costume ever.
• Thank you for always letting me finish "just one more chapter" in my book before I set the table for dinner.
• Thank you for being a great example of why "It never hurts to ask."  This has opened so many doors for me over the years.
• Thank you for stretching out like a happy cat on sunny patches of grass.  You always knew how to grab and enjoy a golden moment!
• Thank you for being so cheerful and fun-loving.  I learned to not take life too seriously from a pro.

Take a couple of minutes and write down five happy memories with your mother.  Be as specific as possible.  Call her and read the list to her, send it over email or shout it to the world on Facebook.  I guarantee this will be the best present she receives on Mother's Day.

And here's a lovely poem celebrating a new mother....enjoy!

For My Wife

~ Steven Lautermilch

We are being born again,

getting second breath in skin and bone, vein

and artery, that once in grunion milt by sea and riverbed

died to take to air.

Through you I find new sight, see the egg

face to face, know the fish, grasp the tree and vine and

blossoming play the ape, to pay out more, still

more this cord our life-line, into time, into space.

With such grace you grow awkward, pantomime and trance

the moon and tides in their slow dance around the earth.

And then, delivered and light, how you shine,

how you shine.