NOT Ordinary

I'm taking Mum to the airport today for her trip to the Orkney Islands to visit my cousin. She just got new luggage and wanted to do something besides the red ribbon that everyone else ties onto their suitcases. She was so taken with her friend Jack's Habitat for Humanity T-shirt that we used that. I took a picture of it and printed it onto a T-shirt transfer. Simple, right? Except it wouldn't stick. So we transferred it onto a cotton pillow case to glue it. It wouldn't glue. So Mum sewed it on. With dental floss. That did the trick!

Hey, everyone! I'm Queen Anne & this is MY suitcase!


We call this the dental floss blanket stitch. She tried it out on a smaller suitcase first before this one. However, she'll go back and redo it because she rounded out the corners with this one. It's killing you that they don't match, isn't it? I asked. She just gave me that Oh, Shut up! LOOK. You know the one.

There is so much that I admire about my mother. One is her spirit for adventure. Long before Nike ever came up with the slogan, Mum has lived a Just Do It life. And yet.

She thinks she's just ordinary. Ordinary?! This came to light when I asked if I could read her letters that she had written as a young woman living out in the Yukon. Oh, I threw those away.

WHAT????

She thinks no one would be interested in a young woman living in the arctic wilderness in 1961 working with Eskimos where she met my chiropractor father. They weren't Eskimos, they were Indians. Whatev, Mum! Quit throwing away the family history! But it's not just that, it's all the other things she does that she takes for granted: amazing multi-tiered, wedding cakes that taste good. She routinely reupholsters furniture. She sews, knits, hangs drywall, and sings in the church choir. She has inspired generations of nursing students. She has mentored midwives and brought 2000 babies into the world. She raised us living in a dome. Ordinary?

One person's ordinary is another person's unique.