Happy Mother's Day and other deep thoughts!

Happy Mother's Day everyone! I hope your family is treating you to a nice breakfast, warm hugs, and lots of kisses. I can forgive my youngest ;) . I told him to wake up and eat his eggs dad made him. Told him it's a special day. I ask, "Do you know what special day it is???" He replied, "Yes, it's Sunday." :O Think hard, young son! Took him about five minutes and a whisper in his ear then a "Happy Mother's Day, Mom." :) DS#2 just gave me a hug with the appropriate wishes. The girls are still sleeping.

A big congratulations to Connie! She won the Handbag Contest at Patternreview. What a stylish, chic bag she made so here, so if you haven't seen it already, CHECK IT OUT!!!

On to deep thoughts for the week. I self admittedly don't have many friends (really, who wants to be friends with a geeky sewing addict LOL). I'm very picky, like to think it's a high standard kind of thing. I gravitate to what I feel are honest people with good hearts and strong ethics. It's always disturbing when someone lets you or someone you know down when the obvious decision to do what is right is negated. Especially when, in my case, it doesn't affect me, but someone unrelated to me that I think very highly of. It wouldn't be that easy to put things in perspective if the situation affected me personally, but it doesn't. The situation reminds me of what I would like my kids to be, the kind of person I hope they will become.

There was a principal I worked under as a teacher right out of college. He retired about 3 or 4 years after I started. He was a people person to the nth degree. Hot temper, of course, but you always knew where you stood with him. One week during the summer I went to pick up my paycheck and he was in his office. He told me to come and we had a lovely chat. Just about anything really, that's the way he was. Open door policy, good conversationalist, and not only that, he was SINCERE! A quality I find sorely lacking these days. It's one thing to say something, the other to mean it. It made me want to work twice as hard at my job for a man like that. Yes, the man had his shortcomings as many were quick to point out, but he had the real qualities that mattered--friendship, loyalty, and sincerity.

I remember, quite distinctly, walking the halls for Hall Duty one morning at our high school. We had a custodian named Joe who was as friendly as can be. Mr. X, our principal, was talking to him and I walked up to them to make some morning conversation. It seems Mr. X was setting up a day to go fishing with Joe on the weekend. They were friends, beyond the high school walls. It didn't matter that Joe only had a high school degree and was head custodian, nor that the principal had at least a Master's degree (and maybe then some) and was the school principal. They had a genuine friendship rising above the usual social obstacles like job title, job prestige, networking with your own "social" class, etc. They had a genuine friendship and hung out together after the work day was over.

Unfortunately, this is not typical, at least IMO. Not these days at least. Positions, degrees, social class should not trump what is really important in life like family, true friendship, loyalty, honesty, ethics, morality, and compassion. And yet it happens all the time.

So this Mother's Day, I ponder these thoughts. Remembering that it is my job to help teach my kids what is truly important in life. The do-anything-you-can-to-get-ahead mentality does not cut it with me, although I see it far too often. Everyone once and a while we are privy to situations that remind us who are true friends are. Those are the friendships which should be valued and nurtured.

As my mother once wrote in a birthday card during my teens, "True friends are like gems, precious and rare. False friends are like leaves falling everywhere." I'll remember to tell my own kids that today.

Happy Mother's Day and I hope you find some time to get some sewing done today. "Sincerely" hope ;) !