Reflections on Mothers day

I am in the process of making some items for Mother's day and find myself thinking about some of the gifts I gave my mother. I got to admit they were all pretty lame. All the way from the macaroni encrusted soup can all to the pearl ring I bought with my employee discount at Best Products, Co. Inc. Yup, the gifts I gave were more about me than her.

My mom was a very practical, no nonsense, prickly kinda person. Those sickly sweet mothers day cards, boxes of candy and bouquets of flowers (fresh picked from the vacant field across the street) were just barely tolerated and disposed of as soon as possible. My mom wanted things that made sense to her, the problem with that was no one knew what that was. She loved flowers, but outside growing, not slowly dieing in a vase, sure to be knocked over by some wayward cat. She made her own candy, so to pay for an overpriced box of Whitmans only irritated the be-jebus out of her. She didn't want any jewelry unless it was the good stuff, thank you very much! (and only wore it on 'good' occasions which apparently never came) Needless to say, we all dreaded Mothers day.

One year, my sister and I completely gave up and went to the local hardware store and bought some canning jars, tiny ones, a size she didn't have and was always complaining about. They were pretty nice with an embossed design, rings and lids and a set of fancy~ schmancy stickers to write on. My dad was furious! He thought that was the most thankless, cold hearted, awful gift known to man...'give your mother some empty jars, what were you thinking!...' he made us go at the last minute and get some flowers. Needless to say, my Mom loved the jars and kept them for 'good'. I never knew if she really liked them or just wanted to piss off my dad...yup, it was that kind of family.

So, I am putting together some things for mothers, sweet necklaces with pearls, hearts, cameos, and all the other schlock associated with MOM...but, just for those mom's like mine, I am gonna make a funky clip with a watch hanging from it, practical and fun...my mom wouldn't have cared for it but would have used it because it worked.