Grateful for...

I have been eager to write this post for a while but decided that it would do perfectly for Mother's Day. There are countless things I love about my mom. As I've gotten older I've gradually changed from being a teenager and trying to forge my own path, opposite of my mother's, to now seeing the genius behind everything she's done. Instead of trying to do everything on my own (okay, maybe I still kind of do that...) I think more about the way my mom would do something. I want to plant a garden the way she does, I want the food I cook to taste as good as hers, I want to know all about how to plan for traveling the way she does.

I have so many favorite memories with my mom, most of which are seemingly ordinary things, but those are really the best. I remember days when I would come home from school and there would be fresh brownies or chocolate chip cookies and broadway music playing (usually Les Mis...which I now play too, mainly out of nostalgia). I remember lazy days watching old movies, usually staring Audrey Hepburn or Carey Grant or both. I remember bike rides and ice cream in the summer. I remember reading books together before bed and her stories of her own childhood days with my aunts.

When I think of my mom I can't help but think of her love of traveling and how that is one of the biggest things she has handed down to me. I can only go a few months without feeling the intense need to go somewhere, anywhere. As much as my dad, my brother, and me like to tease her for the extensive research that goes into every trip and zeal to see and do everything possible from the moment we step off the plane, I know I would not be the woman I am today without her desire to show me a world beyond my own.

But mostly I am grateful for my mother's never ending love and care for me and our whole family. She is the one that holds us all together and despite our complaining will push us to fight the jet-lag and go see that museum or hike up that mountain. Thank you mom, and happy mother's day.