**Giggles!**

I'm sure my mother would be surprised by my lack of effort this Mother's Day this year, but I couldn't get any energy going to get me to do much more than lay in bed and watch some movies yesterday between naps. I had two and even went to bed early last night ... and I'm still sputtering in an effort to get started this morning. Even a Chic-fil-a biscuit and orange juice isn't really doing it this morning. I did also manage to go get a grande coffee from Starbuck's to help ... sipping that to make it last since it was so expensive! Mom would have been disappointed, especially since the Firm gives away free coffee ...

Mother's Day was yesterday, another one that I miss my mother, who passed away back in 2011 from complications and poor care from cancer. A terrible death to be sure. I have been saying for almost a decade now if you have a loved one or a friend who's about to undergo treatment, please, make sure that you have gotten all the information possible. Personally, I have long since lost respect for doctors in general. While I do believe there are plenty out there who are good and noble people, I still refuse to deal with them.

So, for me, as I sip on my expensive coffee that I worked for ... at least that would be something my Mom would respect ... I remember all of the love that she gave me. As many of you know, I'm a "Twice Blessed Child!" meaning that first I was born and then secondly adopted by a loving family. I now own pictures where I'm being held by both Mom and Pop ... one with Mom outside the courthouse and then one with Pop in his Navy flight suit just arriving home. Now, for those who care ... I think the flight helmet was given to me later when we came back to Lexington Park, Maryland while I was hanging out with Pop's flight crew, "The Looney Tunes!"

Every house that my folks owned had a swing ... either on the front porch or hanging off of a tree near the pool or out by the lake. While I have some vague memories of Mom rocking me to sleep in the swing out on the front porch on one of the properties and even the one at Lexington Park, Maryland ... but that one is slightly confusing. My Big Sister insists that we had a swing out back where she used to smoke pot with her boyfriend, but I seem to remember being out on the swing with Mom out front. "I remember the white fence that Pop painted," is what I said ... and while my Big Sister agreed with who painted it, she said that the swing was where she said it was. My Big Sister's Laid-Back Husband suggested that it could have been moved. "If I caught my daughter swinging on a swing, smoking pot, and doing ... well, whatever ... hell! I would have cut that tree down!"

Laughing, both of us did admit that would be Pop!

Nevertheless, Mom probably settled Pop down before he killed the kid ... who ended up following us to St. Simons Island and he demanded to see my Big Sister. I told him to pound sand. "She's not here and I'm not helping you find her," I told him. I never liked him. Not sure about Mom, but Mom was classy as far as dealing with my Big Sister. Since my Big Sister was certainly my father's daughter, Mom was able to handle her too.

But, that was Mom. A Southern Bell to be sure, she was also an author, writing twenty plus books between the late 1970s through the 1980s and into 1990s, and an artist of pretty good talent. She loved playing cards and dominoes with her girlfriends and even was dynamite on the golf course, having scored two holes in one at two different times! I was told by the grandkids that Mom was also a good video gamer too when she was properly in the right mindset. I'm not sure what the system was that one Christmas, especially since I was not there, but it was the last Christmas that much of the family was together at Mom and Pop's place in Bonifay, Florida ... and Mom was the champion of the video games that Christmas break!

My mother was one of a kind to be sure. Tough as nails, she did NOT like people telling her how to raise her kids and she did it her way too. Believe you me I can add oh so many stories about that too!

So, for me ... this is a really special picture that  Naru_Arai my friend and really groovy artist did for me. I have yet to find any pictures of my mother and I on a swing together, but I do remember some of those moments.