Random Things: Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday, Mom!! 

Since it is my mom’s birthday, I thought it would be fun to share ten random things about her! To know her is to love her! When people talk to me about my mom, it is abundantly clear that the impact she made on their life is LIFE GIVING POSITIVITY. It’s incredible.

“She was the funnest teacher.”

“She was my all time favorite teacher, I still remember…”

“Mrs. Kincaid is the best.”

However, the most amazing thing to hear is…

“I had no idea Mrs. Kincaid was your mom, now it makes sense! You are so much like her!”

My mom is my hero. Her positivity, joy, love, and servant heart has been my rock my whole life. She is who I want to be. 

Okay- enough of that, let’s get to the random fun facts!

She is obsessed with her dog, and her dog is obsessed with her. You can’t find Bogey without my mom.

She never goes to the hair salon. She cuts her own hair. She even used to color her own hair before she went natural. It’s wild because she has incredible hair. It always looks so great! This one kind of leads me to the next one…

She is an incredible artist. She can sketch, paint, write, bake, etc. She was always the poster queen, she would make amazing posters for all the teams at Andover Central. Madley has this trait, it clearly skipped me!

My mom is the opposite of lazy. This woman gets more done in an hour than normal people get done in a week. She is very determined, and when she mixes that with a little crazy, watch out. She’ll get whatever job done, even when the rest of us get exhausted and quit. I’m pretty sure my dad had to get rid of jigsaw puzzles as her “relaxing” activity because she couldn’t handle that the puzzle wasn’t done.

My mom loves Zumba. I introduced it to her back in 2014, and she has never looked back. Speaking of being active…

My mom is extremely active. If you think you are active, try being friends with her through apple fitness. You’ll realize you aren’t “Tami Level Active”. She now goes to the YMCA every weekday, but I don’t remember her ever doing a workout when I was a kid. However, I do remember her rebounding for me for hours. She would run in place while rebounding. I remember her treading water in the deep end while we swam for hours. I also remember her coaching cross country, sprinting across the fields to catch her runners to give them encouragement. She never seemed tired. I’ve never heard her say she was tired. 

My mom was a stud in high school. Okay, so she wasn’t so great at sports that involved balls. But, good golly, my mom could run. She still holds the Andover High School school record for the 400m. Her time is fast enough to win the state championship most years. I didn’t inherit that speed, but maybe I got a little bit of her gutsiness.

She makes the MOST DELICIOUS COOKIES! Oh my. Over the last 6-7 years, she has perfected her chocolate chip cookies. They are out of this world. She even makes a gluten free version for my sister-in-law. She could make a fortune selling that GF recipe, it is incredible!

She loves my dad a lot. It is so refreshing and encouraging to be around a marriage that looks fun. Retirement has only brought them closer. It would be so draining to be around a marriage that is negative and critical. I don’t think I’ve ever heard my mom say a bad thing about my dad. That seriously blows my mind. To be honest, that same thing is true from my dad. Wow- that is something for all of us married people to think about.

My mom has a couple fun sayings that I’d like to share. I’m sure some of you have heard her say these…

“Better weird than boring” – she was always referring to herself.

“The trouble with trouble is, it starts out as fun” -this has three decades as a 6th grade teacher written all over it.

And those are ten random facts about my mom! I love you, mom!! Thanks for being the best example ever in how to do life!