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Saturday, April 21, 2012

Life Lessons I Have Learned As a Mother and Wife


Hello to my "Daily Mommy News" Readers.  First I apologize for the 8 months since my last post.  I was inspired to write today for multiple reasons.  First I have a rare moment to write which I relish, second I was inspired by the movie I have on right now "Julie and Julia" and third I want to reclaim something I love which is writing.  When I started this blog I tried to daily write about inspirations as often as I could.  I wrote about my experiences as a mommy of a now first grader-wow! I wrote about my love of cooking which is a recent love that through reading and practice I feel that I can now say after over 40 years of being alive I love to cook.  Today I was inspired by something else-life.

 Life has taught me many lessons over the years. I lost my mother at an early age to breast cancer. I was diagnosed with breast cancer as a new wife and new mother and after a few short years (hopefully) of being a cancer survivor for almost a decade I continue to learn from life. Recently life has thrown my family some curve balls and although I love baseball I am not a fan of curve balls from life.  These life lessons continue to teach me a multiple things daily and tonight I felt inspired to share 2 of them with you.  The life lessons of today are friendship and cooking.

First the lesson of friendship.  With these curve balls of life that I referred to I have learned the true meaning of friendship.  I have learned through my friends who have been there for me in these times that they do not need anything or expect something from me to be my friend.  That they will send me an email of Facebook Post when they know I need encouragement because they know that when we become moms we all lose ability to talk on the phone about anything especially true feelings. That these same friends will also show up at your door threatening to break it down (and she would) if I did not answer it so she could make sure I was okay and take me to lunch. That these friends would take me for a walk and not ask any questions until I ask them for help. True friends offer help and support without judgment or expectation of anything in return.  That is true friendship. Life has taught me many things but I am grateful for this lesson of friendship today.

In an unrelated story that I also wanted to share life has also taught me a lesson about cooking.   If you have read my past blogs you know that although my mother was the most wonderful mother I could ever dream of she never taught me how to cook. In the past five years I have tried with some success and some failures to teach myself and I have found that I love to cook.  My husband has sensed that love and has given me amazing gifts of cooking classes and indulged my love of cookbooks and cooking shows and in an effort to spend time with me has endured multiple hours of the Food Network and "Top Chef."  So with that background let me share my cooking lesson of one week ago.  My husband, child and I had a long Spring Break Day and were staying at my in-laws while they were away and I found myself in a busy metropolitan area at 7pm on a weekend night with the dreaded question of "what was for dinner." I knew that from previous nights I had left over pasta and left over Costco rotisserie chicken. But the clincher was I had about 20 minutes to figure something out-in my mother-in law's kitchen.  Well I saw myself as a contestant on the Food Network and rummaged through my mother-in-laws pantry, used the left over’s and was able to create a meal that my husband and child raved about-in 14 minutes. Life lesson-cooking is not about hours and hours of work and gourmet ingredients-it is about an impulsive idea out of necessity that luckily turned out in my child's words as a dish I should submit to the Food Network.  

So after 8 months of being away from my "Mommy News” I wanted to share with you that when life gives you lessons listen and you will learn when you need it the most! I have learned about the lessons of life lately in some respects too much but I can never thank my friends for the lesson of friendship and life for the lesson of survival.