100 things I am grateful for my Mum for (in progress)

1. Teaching me to catch. She spent hours with us all in the backyard, encouraging us in the basics of catching and throwing. People continue to be shocked that a clumsy girl like me can catch so well.


2. Role modeling to me that commitment was everything - if she said she was going to do something, she did it. That flowed through to her children's commitments - especially sport - keeping your commitment to play was paramount.


3. Her cooking style. Long before it was fashionable, she did healthy no-fuss meals.


4. Sharing her love of craft - teaching me how to knit, cross-stitch and generally express myself creatively.


5. Giving me to permission (ok encouraging) to cry over a movie, TV and books.


6. My education - my Dad was from an era where a girl's education wasn't as important as a man's. My mum insisted that wasn't the case - and worked terrible jobs to pay for the education of her five daughters. Of her 8 kids, 5 went to university.


7. Broadening my horizons when it came to food, she was way ahead of other Mums when it came to embracing the world of food.


8. Her hands; each day when I look down at my hands I am reminded of my mum and her strength.


9. Showing me that helping others, whenever I can, will make me a happier person. My Mum spent her life being of service.


10. Insisting I 'look it up' when I didn't know something. When I was a little girl she made me look up the dictionary every time I came across a word I didn't know. Today I instinctively google something when I come across it for the first time.


11. Sharing her love for moving her body - especially walking.


12. Sharing her love of reading with me.


13. My siblings - yes I know it takes two to make babies, but it was my mothers Catholicism that resulted in me having 7 siblings. Growing up I desperately wanted anything other than having so many siblings, but today I couldn't choose which ones to give up. My life would be so much poorer without them.


14. For how she makes me feel when I feel sick - no one makes me feel like everything is going to be alright like she does. She'd give me her cure-all, a lemonade ice block and I'd feel instantly better.


15. Her insistence I smile first - especially if I wasn't sure how I knew people.


16. So many of my values come from her.


17. Mum has always walked everywhere, and on good days I am reminded that walking is a great way to see the world.


18. Flying half-way around the world to come to my wedding - in her 70s!
    
19. Weekends Away in 2015