Thank goodness, I was so hoping we would have a white Halloween. 4 slopping snow inches and counting. Thank you very much!

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“When you find yourselves a little gloomy, look around you and find somebody that is in a worse plight than yourself; go the him and find out what the trouble is, then try to remove it with the wisdom which the Lord bestows upon you; and the first thing you know, your gloom is gone, you feel light, the Spirit of the Lord is upon you, and everything seems illuminated.” President Lorenzo Snow, LDS Conference Report, April 6, 1899.

Last spring when I was a bit down a neighbor, a friend, who is usually rushing around with kids and sporting events, dropped off two pots of snapdragons! They cheered me to the core and on the first of September today, she called me out of the blue to see how I was. It made me feel like a million bucks. Again, thanks for the snap dragon lady!

My girls went to camp Monday and texted today, Tuesday, to come home. They complained of bugs, heat, dirt, being tired, feeling light-headed, missing their electronics (usually attached to their heads yes so that would account for the light-headedness) and blah, blah, blah. Before they had left my girls knew their Dad, my husband, was coming up tonight Tuesday to help with the shift of fathers who take turn keeping guard over the camp at night. They knew he was coming and they knew that he could bring them home!

It was interesting they texted my husband, as he is a softie, and even more interesting that they could text as they were NOT allowed to bring their phones! As soon as I noticed my husband had been texting for quite some time . . . 19 to be exact . . . I asked who he was texting and the story came out. I grabbed his phone and wrote, “You girls can come home!” send, “On Friday when your supposed too . . .” send!

My eldest wrote back, “At least send some peanut butter bars . . they’re starving us here!”

So, being the sweet, strict mom that I am . . . and knowing my girls had not given up and their quest to come home from camp AND as I said knowing my husband is a softie . . . I baked 4 dozen peanut butter bars for the 25 or so girl campers — they are sooo good the bars, not necessarily but most hopefully the girls too — and packed with a card that said . . . As requested, here are your, “I will make you do extra chores if you come home early so you may as well get over your homesickness” peanut butter bars!

I had to duct tape the box shut so my husband wouldn’t dive into them on the way up the mountain to camp. You think everyone got the message? This is my week . . . me and 1 child and even without a snoring husband for one night . . . have the peanut butter bars and stay at camp! This is my week! Take That!

Here is the recipe — I usually double it!!! I think it was Betty Crocker’s originally! My advice for the day . . . no matter how hot it is to turn the oven on . . . bake the bars and keep the kids at camp! Kim Power Stilson

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup magerine or butter
1/3 crunchy peanut butter
1 egg
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup regular oats
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Mix sugar, butter, peanut butter and egg. stir in flour, baking powder and oats. Pat into a foil covered pan — 9 by 13 or if doubled use a larger rimmed cookie sheet. Bake 17 to 22 minutes on 350 or until golden yummy brown. Cool while making chocolate peanut butter frosting!

Frosting:
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter
cocoa powder
milk
vanilla
You know what to do with these . . . when creamy spread on bars!!! Pack with a bow and send to camp and then relax!

I sat down to pick up a conversation on Skype and typed in the words . . . Hel . . . when Skype kindly informed me that ‘Hell’ was not in my contact list. I can’t tell you how enormously relieved I was to be told that and how kind of Skype to let me know!
I started thinking about how appropriate that message was this morning. I have worked so hard at being good lately – not yelling at the kids, not loosing faith, serving others in need although suffering myself, watching my 11 month old niece even while I had a million other things to do, holding tight to my dreams, focusing on my kids when they talk to me and Listening, yes, listening, and ignoring rude people.
The very latter has been tough this weekend . . . let me start explaining by asking you if I told you we had a garage sale? We sold all sorts of things – valuable, once valuable to us, and oddly valuable to others. In anticipation of our trek to Southern California for Law school, we sold things we loved that we knew from experience would be difficult to move. In my bedroom, which is very large with high ceilings and a wall of windows, my oasis, my office, my haven, I have a very fancy entertainment center too big to move with us into a home, without the same kind of space, which undoubtedly we won’t get in California. I brought people inside from the drive who expressed interest in buying furniture which is only 2 years old and in lovely condition. Some of the people I brought into my room actually made comments – yes, in front of me – about how I had decorated the room. It was as they were in RC Willey or some fancy furniture store and felt compelled to criticize. They said things while pointing to my bedroom furniture and window seats piled full of pillows – which were not on sale – like, “I wouldn’t pay $2 for that!” “I don’t like the color . . . .(of my bedspread? Who asked you?) “This rug doesn’t go with the room!” “I couldn’t sleep with all those windows!” “I wouldn’t put that in MY house” “This is to fancy for me!” One lady who came into my home grunted in distaste as I showed her what we were offering in our front room. When she wanted to know what else I had, so I mentioned the entertainment center in my room, with obvious reluctance to show her into my room. She bowled her way in, practically shouted that she couldn’t use that, “didn’t I know she only had 8 foot ceilings in her basement?!” and then stomped her feet like a child before fleeing the premise as if I had let loose poison gas (no, I hadn’t) and that was one of the nicer experiences I had!
Okay, lest you think I am a slob . . . (I am not, well at least NOT when I know people will be coming into my room!!!) . . . you need to know that my room is perfectly lovely to me and the fact that I am not a designer doesn’t in any way excuse the thoughtless comments of people coming in to look at one piece of furniture for sale in my room. I mean isn’t it bad enough that people offered .0001 cents on the dollar for my lovely things spread out on the drive? I did expect that but to come into my home and see furniture that I had obviously chosen and cared for and critique it in front of me like they were at a home show and I was a real estate agent and they were going to show how much they didn’t like it before they made an offer?
By the end of Day 1 of our 2-day garage sale, I was thinking awfully unkind things about my fellow man.
Now I must add here that with all this we had some amazingly nice people – people who paid full price knowing they were getting a good deal. People who helped us through the process – like Chad’s kind “NEW” parents who brought their camper down, parked in the driveway for few days, and helped us do everything for the sale AND weeded our front drive, made dinner, and fixed our screens so I have a lovely fly-less breeze in our house. There were those kind folks who came in to chat, buy a few books for the cause, and kindly remark that they would miss us if we moved. In spite of the goodness I did receive from those few, I am human, and felt invaded, violated and hurt by the thoughtless remarks of people, people who by the way came in made their comments in my home AND . . . incidentally, did not buy a thing!
A few days have passed, remnants of the garage sale packed into the garage for the next one (I know what could we be thinking?!), during which I won’t be inviting people into my home without tying gags to their mouths.
Honestly it has been weirdly difficult! I can’t walk into my room without remembering those strangers who critiqued my haven. I feel invaded and somehow less comfortable! So, obviously my thoughts are not kind and most surely not get me into Heaven! So, you can see why I would be relieved to know that ‘hell’ is not in my contact list. So, today, since Skype has chosen to forgive me, and give me a second chance, perhaps I should follow suite, and forgive and forget! I forgive you rude garage sales attendees who critiqued my haven and didn’t buy a thing! I forgive you but please don’t come back! There, done, gone forgotten! I wonder how Skype executives would feel about the new service they have provided?

Woodland Hills, UT, El Dorado Hills, CA & Waterford, Ireland — June 11, 2009 (PR.com) – Kim Power Stilson and her family were among the first of their friends to be hit by what is euphemistically referred to as the New Economy. Starting in 2006 with a series of client’s who couldn’t pay their invoices, Kim lost a business she poured her life into for almost 7 years and by the beginning of 2008 she was in the same position then as millions around the globe are today – well-educated, well-experienced – and needing to find work.
Finding no success on her job hunt, she read every “power of positive thinking” type of book out there and some twice while asking herself why she had had failed. One day, on a street corner, she saw a professionally-attired man with his family holding a sign that said “Need Work.” She watched as the car in front of her rolled down their window and handed over ten bucks. At first she felt sad at the thought of the kind of solution ten bucks would offer that man and his family and then it hit her how close she and her family were to being in the same position. She then asked a question that changed her life.

“Why do some people start their own business, out of their garage, or dining room, and end up million billionaires, while some of us pour our lives into our business and end up losing our homes and holding a sign on a street corner that says ‘Need Work’?”
From that day, with little business and no job to claim her time, she went on a quest to answer that question and what she found on her search to keep from joining the man on the corner was a surprise. It took 18 months but she found that the difference between being a successful million billionaire and standing on a street corner was as simple as each individual business owner’s answer to 10 Questions.
Kim took the fresh perspective her own answers to the 10 questions gave her and revamped her business in a way that would do the most good for her clients in the new economy. Instead of offering her services individually, she duplicated her strategic marketing services into an online marketing training, thus offering an inexpensive way for every business owner to learn to market their products 21st Century Style themselves, instead of paying a consultant to do it for them.
Within a few months Kim had requests from major training companies for her services and when Kim garnered the attention of Tom Egan of the Web Campus Word Wide, (WcWW) who also believed in giving power to the small business owners, “The 5 Step eMedia eMPowerment Series” was born. Their training series is now taken by business owners in the U.S., U.K. and India with positive results. Kim even won an award for her efforts. She says that as soon as she answered the 10 Questions, things got better and she found success where recently she had only found failure!
“Needing work and creating your own doesn’t mean re-inventing the wheel, it may be just as simple as finding a new way to roll the wheel you’ve got!” said Kim Power Stilson. “On my quest, rather than confirming what I thought, that businesses fail because success is difficult and too expensive, I actually discovered that right now is the easiest and least expensive time in the history of the world to make money, become famous and achieve success!”

At the request of friends, Kim put the 10 Questions into a guide and named it in honor of the family she saw holding the “need work” sign on the street and in the spirit of the car who stopped to hand them ten bucks. The Ten Buck Solution for 21st Century Success asks 10 Questions, with each question followed by an Assignment that will help you come up with a positive answer to that question. If you are thinking about starting a business or have a business, the difference between success and failure may reside in knowing your own answers to these10 questions.
“You never know what will happen after you read this . . . These 10 questions and assignments may make the difference between creating your own work or holding a sign that says ‘Need Work’,” said Stilson. “I can promise you that the information is worth at least the ten bucks you would give to help someone, and I have the highest hopes it will be worth many more thousands to all the business owners like me who are on a quest for 21st Century Success!”
The Ten Buck Solution for 21st Century Success is offered as a complimentary gift to business owners across the globe needing work. You must get the ten buck solution if you have or are thinking about starting a successful business in the 21st Century. Please go to www.WcWW.com or www.powerstrategies.TV to get your Ten Buck Solution code.
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About The Ten Buck Solution:
Need Work? Create your own 21st Century Success starting with the Ten Buck Solution a Pre-eMPowerment Step offered by Kim Power Stilson and the strategists from Web Campus World Wide. The Ten Buck Solution has two components: 1. 10 Questions & 10 Assignments in a green-version eGuide training called The Ten Buck Solution for 21st Century Success, AND 2. As an affordable Ten Buck per hour training solution for business owners who want to learn how to market, sell and compete online through the eMPowerment Series on the Web Campus World Wide at www.WcWW.com. The Ten Buck Solution for 21st Century Success is offered as a complimentary gift to business owners across the globe who are well-educated, well-experienced, and need work. You must get the ten buck solution if you have or are thinking about starting a successful business in the 21st Century. Please go to www.WcWW.com to get your Ten Buck Solution code.
About Kim Power Stilson:
Kim Power Stilson has helped 50,000 businesses to share their story online! The author of “The Ten Buck Solution for 21st Century Success” and The 5 Step eMPowerment Series, Kim is also an award-winning pioneer of Internet Talk Radio and hosts a weekly show on several syndicated sites. A graduate of the prestigious Brigham Young University, Kim is a dual citizen, who divides her time between the United States, England & Ireland. She has 4 dogs, 3 kids, 2 birds and a cat and a very patient husband. For more information, contact kim@powerstrategies.TV. Join her on Facebook and Twitter!
About WcWW:
WcWW (Web Campus World Wide) located online with physical offices in El Dorado Hills, CA, Woodland Hills, UT and Waterford City, Ireland, was created to bring to Small Business the eMPowerment strategies of the 21st Century. Combining the talents and synergies of Kim Power Stilson and Thomas “Net” Egan, Chad Stilson, Debbie Cluff & David Ryan, WcWW has become the vehicle to provide The 5 eMPowerment Steps to Small Business Owners World Wide. Please visit www.WcWW.com.

El Dorado Hills, CA, & Salt Lake City, UT, & Waterford, Ireland, June 6 2009 – (PR.com) – Need Work? She was among the first to be hit by what is euphemistically referred to as the New Economy. Starting in 2006 with a series of client’s who couldn’t pay their invoices; she lost a business she poured her soul into for almost 7 years. The final blow, the loss of her husband’s job, and by the beginning of 2008, Kim Power Stilson was left as poor and unsuccessful as she had ever been. She was then in the same position as millions around the globe are today – well-educated, well-experienced – and needing to find work.
Finding no success on her job hunt, she read every “power of positive thinking” book out there and some twice while asking herself why she had had failed. One day, she saw a professionally attired man with his family holding a sign that said “Need Work.” She watched as the car in front of her rolled down their window and handed over ten bucks. She realized then how close she and her family were to being in the same position. She then asked a question that changed her life.

“Why do some people start their own business like I have, out of their garage, or dining room, and end up million billionaires,” said Kim Power Stilson. “While some of us pour our lives into our business and end up losing our homes and holding a sign on a street corner that says ‘Need Work?”
From that day, with no business claim she time, she went on a quest to find that answer. What she found after 18 months of searching surprised her. Instead of finding that small business failure happened because of difficulty and expense, she discovered that now is easiest and least expensive time, in the history of the world, to make money, become famous and achieve success. The difference between being a successful million billionaire and standing on a street corner was in each person’s answer to 10 simple Questions. She applied the knowledge, got back to work, found success, and put the Ten Questions into a guide called “The Ten Buck Solution for 21st Century Success” named after the ten bucks she had seen given months earlier.
If you are thinking about starting a business or have a business, the difference between success and failure may be, knowing YOUR answer to these10 questions. For Kim it has already made the difference of enjoying success and holding a sign on the street corner.
“If you need work, and are thinking about creating your own, you MUST consider your answer to the 10 questions,” said Kim Power Stilson. “When you do, you will find that now is the best time to create your own successful business!”
The price of the guide and training delivered on the World Campus Web Wide is Ten Bucks, yet it is her gift to you if you if you need work. “I can’t promise the solution is as easy as handing Ten Bucks out a car window, yet I hope it makes the difference between you achieving success or standing on the street corner holding a sign that says “Need Work”, it sure has for me!” Please go to www.powerstrategies.TV and WcWW.com, to get your copy of the “The Ten Buck Solution for 21st Century Success” Kim’s gift to those like her who need work!
###
About The Ten Buck Solution:
Need Work? Create your own 21st Century Success starting with the Ten Buck a Pre-eMPowerment Step offered by Kim Power Stilson and the strategists from Web Campus World Wide. The Ten Buck Solution has two components: 1. 10 Questions & 10 Assignments in an green-version eGuide training called “The Ten Buck Solution for 21st Century Success” AND, 2. As a very affordable Ten Buck per hour training solution for business owners who want to learn how to market, sell and compete online.

“The Ten Buck Solution for 21st Century Success” is offered as a complimentary gift to business owners across the globe who are well-educated, well-experienced, and need work. You must get the ten buck solution if you have or are thinking about having a successful business in the 21st Century. Please go to WcWW.com to get your Ten Buck Solution code.
About Kim Power Stilson:
Kim Power Stilson has helped 50,000 businesses to share their story online! The author of “The Ten Buck Solution for 21st Century Success” and The 5 Step eMPowerment Sersies, Kim is also an award-winning pioneer of Internet Talk Radio and hosts a weekly show on several syndicated sites. Kim Power Stilson shares expert advice in magazines, is a sought after speaker for corporations and universities and has been featured in national publications and across the Web. A graduate of the prestigious Brigham Young University, Kim is the founder of the Bluebird Sisterhood, sits on several boards and loves to watercolor, play tennis, snow ski, write, and be near the sea. A dual citizen, Kim divides her time between the United States, England & Ireland. She has 4 dogs, 3 kids, 2 birds and a cat and a very patient husband. For more information, contact kim@powerstrategies.TV. Join her on Facebook and Twitter!

How to eat with a knife and fork while sitting!

Account Bluebird Sisterhood

About a year ago, I opened the utensil drawer to find a spoon. I noticed we had hordes of spoons and not one fork. Mystified I looked in the dishwasher and then the other obvious place, the sink, and could not find one solitary fork. Not one! I asked out loud, “Where are all the forks?” and my, then 11-year-old daughter, answered, “We don’t have any, we don’t use them anyway!” Her comment and that search process made me think. Where had all the forks gone? How could we have lived this long without forks and why would my daughter say we don’t use them? Why hadn’t I noticed their disappearance sooner? I started to think about our Utensil usage – not that I had time but I do love a good mystery, so I couldn’t help myself. Sure we use spoons daily . . . cereal in the morning and ice cream at night. How about knifes? I use knifes to spread the jam on the toast I had out the door as the door to catch the school bus. I use knifes to make the sandwiches that I pack in their lunches for school. Four sandwiches every day like clock work . . . 1 knife for to spread the peanut butter, one knife for the jam, one knife for the honey – heaven forbid any of those items touch before they reach the bread – and one for the mayonnaise. Yes, I use a lot of those knifes every day. I opened the drawer . . . brimming with knifes. Still now forks! What could have happened to the forks? Do forks become extint with lack of use? I had a wild thought and then ran for the hutch where I keep my so-so nice and so-so matching set of utensils for the fancy dinners, you know the wedding gift sets, the ones I was so sure I would use each Sunday for family dinner. I opened that drawer, everything was there, forks included, and for now felt safe that the mystery hadn’t reached the hutch. Still, I wondered, where the forks were.

I told my husband about the mystery and he seemed to agree with my daughter. “We don’t use them so why worry?” Still he could tell by the look on my face that something more serious and sinister was afoot. “What kind of family doesn’t use forks?” I shouted much to emphatically for the loss of forks. Suddenly the mystery seemed some kind of heathen sin, so my husband, unable to escape, walked me through it. “We just don’t use forks because we never formally sit down to eat! Think about it. We eat while running out the door, while driving in our car, while in a meeting, while typing at our desk. The fork has been replaced by our hands. We eat with our hands! We don’t need forks!” He held up his hands and turned to walk away with that Mystery solved kind of air that husbands get when they have found a solution and no more words are necessary. “What mystery solved? Now that I realize we live like heathens, I still don’t know where the forks are! If we don’t use them then where have they gone?” The day was busy and the my continued drama unnoticed so I changed the subject and went to work . . . eating my toast and drove. I could not help but think of the situation. I was raised in a home where manners were important. We ate a the family table, with napkins in our laps, with our mouths firmly closed as we chewed and we didn’t really even speak unless spoken too. We ate together with full utensils while sitting still. I remember bouncing my legs under the table and getting a fork poke in the arm for my efforts. “Sit still while you eat!” growled my father more than once to me or my 5 siblings. Forks where used for dual purposes then, eating and stabbing, I still have a tiny scar, but that is another story.
I went to work, asked a few people how often they sat round a table to eat with a knife and fork and I got enough blank stares to realize this mystery may be an epidemic. I stopped myself from asking them if their forks had disappeared as well, no need to give any extra reason for thinking I was a little crazy. Still the issue haunted me and I decided I would insist we would eat dinner as a family, forks, knifes, plates and napkins at the table . Well life got busy, I worked late, my husband picked up pizza and still determined to keep my goal I called everyone into the dining room – even my son, with a piece of pizza in each hand in front of the TV – responded with worried looks on their faces. I announced we would sit down and eat with utensils at the table that night and every night and this is the response I got . . . in this order. “What are utensils?” “No one eats pizza at a table?” “Why are you doing this to us?” “Is this the fork thing again?” that from my husband. “We don’t have any forks!” this from the same daughter. I made them all sit down, passed out the napkins from Little Caesar’s pizza, thankfully they sent those, and then remembered a box of plastic forks from the last camping trip and passed those out round the table. The looked at me like I was insanse, really I even felt a bit deflated then, I mean who really does eat pizza with a fork and knife anymore? (I did as a kid!) Still I was determined.
The next night I made spaghetti, almost triumphantly daring anyone to question the use of fork with the long stringy pasta. We sat down to dinner, again with the plastic forks, and I made them put napkins in their laps, had them say a blessing on the food (something we always did when I was a kid) and sat down for a nice knife and fork dinner. What happened I realized their manners were atrocious – all of them even my husband! The slurping, the fork waving for enunciation while my oldest daughter talked about the math teacher she hates, the dropped pasta . . . not in the napkin on the floor . . . it was awful. I told them that when I was a child my father would have poked me with a fork had I displayed such manners and they said – again in order, “That would be child abuse mom, they won’t let you do that now!” this from my oldest. “Did you defend yourself with a knife?” this from Clone Wars-loving son. “We don’t have any forks?” you know who said that. “Is this the fork thing again? “ you know who said that too.
It has now been a year . . . as a family we sit down to eat with a knife and fork at least 4 times a week. Teaching them to eat with a knife and fork while sitting was a painful labor of love. The good news is that my children’s manners have improved enough that I can safely invite my father over and not fear a stabbing. Food still flies occasionally when I fork is wave emphatically during our great family discussions. I no longer allow them to eat while standing and we rarely eat in our cars. I have found we gravitate to the table. I still don’t know where my forks went . . . my new mother-in-law; Grandma Cheryl brought us a bag of forks she found at a garage sale last week. Everyone was excited! The fork section in the drawer was overflowing for the first time in years! Funny though, last night we sat down to dinner, a rice and bean concoction, and I realized we needed utensils, I asked my now 12-year-old to them. She called from the kitchen, “We are out of forks? Will spoons work?”

I don’t like Mother’s Day never have. I was in New York once for Mother’s Day, I went to a church service where some Mom’s got up and actually spoke of banning Mother’s Day. I mean we all love Mother’s but the Day? The day sucks! (Forgive the language Mom!) It is supposed to be a day that honors us for all we do right? But how do those of us who don’t have kids feel? How about those of us who do have kid’s who forget feel? I say we be kind to Mother’s everywhere every day! That is my soap box and I am sticking to it.

Now before you think I am too negative, this year I had decided to plan for MOther’s Day. I got up early Saturday morning to see my husband off to a volunteer fire fighter mock service project, and quickly up made Sunday brunch, dinner — easy souffle and crockpot roast — and put it in the refrigerator. I baked up two batches of cupcakes — banana and chocolate — as gifts for grandma and other Mother friends (I had sent the cards earlier this week and even bought one for the kid’s to give me) and for Sunday dessert. I did all that and it was still early!

The little kid’s were still in bed, Maddy was still in Florida on vacation with her friend’s family . . . I was tired,feeling sorry for myself, it had been a long couple of weeks. Perhaps I could just crawl back into bed, sleep in, take some time for me? It was Mother’s Day weekend after all . . . surely I could get away with it? After that I would have a fun day, maybe go garage sale-ing, hunt through my favorite bookstore, give myself a manicure. This would be the greatest Mother’s Day ever. I was ready for it! I was positive I had anticipated everything!

What always happens when you decide to take ME time?

Just as I snuggled into the covers my Dad came in with my little brother Charlie’s 10-month old baby, Olivia. Charles was at work and his wife was very ill with the flu. Could I take the baby?

My 9-year old son came in and reminded me I promised to let him wash the dogs. So I held the baby got the first dog (have you seen our dogs?) into the shower with my son and then the baby throw up.

That’s how it all started! Saturday I cleaned up 6 throw ups and washed 3 dogs with my son, and laundered countless towels and sheets. Then McKall, my 12-year old got that look, flushed cheeks, stomach pains. McKall threw up, Olivia threw up, then one of the dogs threw up. Then the other dog ate that and the sniffed around McKall. What is it with dog’s and vomit?

Soon I had bowls lined up in front of each of them in various stages of illness. They would throw up, I would get rid of the vomit, wash the bowls, sanitize them and then exchange them for another bowl. Mother’s Day came and went . . . those who were well ate the meals I made . . . ate the cupcakes . . . most of them I put in the freezer for school lunches. Celebration? brunch? I didn’t even get to go to church! What I did do was clean up vomit!

In all by mid week, I had washed out 17 bowls of Vomit. I had not slept and I had antibacterial-ed (is that a word?) every square inch of the house. It has been beautiful outside, I would not know though as I have not stepped out of the house since last Friday. A kind neighbor brought by flu relief medicines and popsicles . . . and I almost hugged her . . . but she got out of the doorway fast. Who wants to hug a woman who has cleaned up vomit all week?

I forgot all about Mother’s Day til my oldest daughter came back from Florida. She handed round her souvenirs and then had me close my eyes. She said, “this is for Mother’s Day!” and handed me a beautiful pearl necklace. She had pulled the pearl from an oyster while in Florida and then went to buy a chain. She gave me a hug and started laughing when I started to cry, “you remembered me?” She said, “Mom, of course I did!”

I am wearing that necklace now as Maddy is calling me. “Mom . . . my stomach hurts!” and she looks like she might throw up. Yup there she goes . . . 18 bowls of Vomit now . . . but somehow I don’t mind . . . Mother’s Day doesn’t need to be perfect . . . Mother’s just need to be there . . . and remembered eventually!