I LOVE this Microphone...

I love my mom.  She's taught me all sorts of good things-- its easier to ask forgiveness than permission, how to walk into a room and find the one "lost" item a family member has "looked for" for 30 minutes (if it was a snake, it woulda bit 'em), the best cornbread recipe ever, you should never leave the house without earrings, that decorations and fun little gifts make all occassions more fun, how to survive with two bad knees.  But the most useful thing she has taught me was how important hand-written notes are.  My mom has beautiful handwriting (as does my Aunt Jane), and she has always written me lots of sweet notes-- notes in my lunchbox at school, letters while I was away for a week at camp (I mean, she's on top of things-- half of those letters were written and sent before I ever left so they'd be there right after I got there.  I think she thought I might be homesick.  With two younger siblings at home, I was usually ecstatic and trying to bribe the busdriver to drive slowly on the way home.), letters while I was away at college, cards for nearly every occassion imaginable.  I love getting letters from my mom. 

Meghann and I are poor mail checkers.  I used to be really good at checking my mail-- I love getting mail and there were always magazines and fun stuff like that (also there were these letters stamped "collections" but those are just junk mail letters regarding collecting coins and stuff like that, right?).  In previous homes, I've had to walk Parker several times a day, a walk that usually allowed us to sashay right past the mail box.  Now we have a fancy fenced-in backyard, and between that and Mommy's knees, Parker hasn't hardly been in the front yard since we moved.  So mail often goes unchecked. 

Meghann must have checked it Tuesday because when I got home Tuesday night, there was a stack of mail for me.  A couple magazines (Elle and Southern Living), a church bulletin, a couple bills, and a letter from my mom.  I put it in my purse to read the next morning at work. 

And I took a picture for you guys:

As you can see, apparently Mom has gotten a new toy- a label maker.  And she is using the US Postal Service to terrorize me into being jealous of her as she knows I happen to love label makers.  Years ago when I lived at home after law school, I bought a label maker to get organized.  It totally didn't really help, but I spent many fun hours making labels for everything in the house.   I labeled files and boxes and pictures and the designated place for certain things, including the label maker, and extra labels for the label maker.  I'm pretty sure my dad kept moving the label marker away from its specific spot to harrass me, but I cannot prove this. 

Well, apparently Deborah has gotten a label maker at work.  As you can see, she's finally learned how to use it.  Not only did she learn how to use it to make the address labels (in different fonts), but she also made a label for the back (in a third font) that says "I love my labelmaker".  And then, using yet another font, she's made another label about her sick obsession with this tool on the first page of her letter. 

Now that she's made my cry over my missed label maker (which has somehow gotten lost in the zillion times I've moved since then), she goes on to write a letter on her USA Olympic notepad.  Which she's gotten free, in the mail I'm sure.  I've never seen anyone with so many free notepads and pre-printed address labels in my life.  She gets them all the time.  I've never seen her donate to anything and yet those things come in all the time.  Half of her letters have the return address label with a "Save the Oceans" picture on it or "Hoot if you love Hoot Owls" in the corner. 

Mom then proceeds to send a very nice little letter where she, inexplicably realizes, in the middle of writing this letter, that she will be 60 next year, and writes the stream of consciousness thoughts about this in the letter.  She "loves [me] bunches" as you can see, but then goes back to her favorite theme of how much she loves her new labelmaker.  As an afterthought, she decides to check on my knees and Parker.  And she encloses a $1 dollar bill.  It was very straight. 

I called her later that morning and said thank you for the letter and she reminded me that she loved her new labelmaker (written in all caps to stand out and differentiate from the half a dozen other times those words were on the page).  Its as if she felt her letter didn't get that point across strong enough.  I thanked her for that money and promised to use it to pay down my student loans and not use it in some frivolous way, like buying a pack of gum. 

"Oh you are so welcome, honey, I'm sorry I couldn't send more, but 1. I was afraid to send any more money through the mail cause you know the letter might get lost, 2. Its all the cash I had on me and, 3. Thats all you are really worth anyway... you're my third favorite.  But you know what?  I love this label maker?  Did you see all my labels?"

Blogger's Note: The title of this blog will only be understood by a couple of my college friends, and well, even they might not get it. 

Blogger's Second Note:  Before you feel bad after reading this blog, please note that A. I'm fairly sure my mom was just kidding.  I know I'm worth at least a fiver in her book, and B. She has declared herself entirely fair game for ridicule, and knew this conversation would find its way on this blog.  She does all this stuff for attention, I think.