My momma

Today is one of the most important days of the year, Mother's Day! I truly believe mothers have the hardest job in the entire world and there should be a day at least once a month celebrating their hard work, but if one day is all they get, we should go big or go home. Unfortunately, I am unable to be with my momma (Mom and kids pictured right) today because of work commitments in Oxford, but she and the pop traveled to Martin to see Brother Ben play and then stay for the senior appreciation/family picnic. Trying to describe what all a mother does is as complicated as describing the logic behind Rachael Ray's wardrobe. Nobody understands how or what all they do in a day, but all I know is that my mom magically is the first one up getting every one's day started off to a wonderful start and the last one to go to bed making sure everyone is taking care of (not counting if pop stays up later working on fantasy). She is always caring, really funny (just ask her) and apparently in possession of a magical serum that allows her to know answers and solutions to most problems. Whenever I'm in the middle of a breakdown my supermom always comes to the rescue with a plan to conquer and it always works even if I don't always want to admit it. As I write I am trying to come up with the right way to describe a good mom but it really is difficult to come up with the words... so maybe some stories will do. I don't know what it is about my mom, me and trips but we always seem to be going somewhere insane together. Case and point, two summers ago uncle Ray graciously gave me his old furniture (that w/o there would be NO places to sit in my house btw) but we had to make the trip to Atlanta to get the furniture. There was a couch, over sized chair, two coffee tables, bed, dresser, bed side table and a desk. OMG. Mom got off work at around 8, got a Uhaul and drove to Atlanta by herself. Arriving late and struggling to park we alarmed all of Ray's neighbors and proved their loyalty by calling him even later in the night while on vacation to alert him of some crazy Tennesseans coming to steal him out of house and home. The next morning we began unloading all of the furniture outside and quickly realized the uhaul was not big enough. After loading everything we could, Mom drove me back to Oxford (6 hours from Atlanta) and then back to Nashville (almost 5 hours) with the Uhaul, only to do it again the very next weekend! When I was young she drove me to dance lessons, softball (who was I kidding) girl scouts, violin lessons, pool parties, basketball and as I got older she drove me to every mall in the middle Tennessee area to find dresses for dances (of course I always looked fat), voice lessons, auditions for undergraduate schools, move in day at Ole Miss, choir concert, football games, recitals, finally graduate school auditions and countless other trips. I really could not imagine a pair of more supportive parents and a mother who thank God has some sense of direction. From all of our mother/daughter trips I've learned...you should stop for gas before you are on empty, throw away your trash throughout the trip to prevent a junky car, even if you you are going the speed limit you might be going too fast for the situation, have a plan to tell the officer before you get pulled over, good music is a necessity for a successful road trip and finally going anywhere with my mom will be an experience to cherish! If I turn out to be half of the momma she has been I will be proud.

I hope my mom and every other mom out there has the BEST Mother's Day ever; you deserve it! For Natalie's News this has been, Natalie-Corinne.