Dishing It! Party

Welcome to the May edition of my Dishing It! party! I'm so glad you're here, and I hope that you are planning on having a lot of fun visiting around some other great blogs.

I planned this party as a way for bloggers to not only share a little bit about themselves, but to also make an effort to get to know some of the other wonderful people out there in Blogland. New bloggers and seasoned pros are all welcome!

I do have a few quick rules that I'd like you to stick to if you're planning on linking up with me. Nothing crazy, just basic blogging etiquette, but it would help me out so much if you'd follow through so I don't have to delete links.

1. Please be sure to enter the link to your specific party post.

2. Please include a link to THIS post somewhere within your own post. It's just good manners. I will have to delete your entry if I don't see a link to this post.

3. Please leave me a comment with your party link as well. This helps tremendously in case there are problems with the inlinkz system. I've had major problems with MckLinky recently, so we're trying something new. Please be patient with me, and send me an email if your link won't go up after a few tries. I can work with you to get your post linked up!

Also, it's just plain nice to leave me a comment. (wink)

4. MINGLE. After going on and on about Blog Party Etiquette recently, it seems that many of you agree that a party is not a party unless you visit! Please take a few minutes to visit at least one or two other links on the list and leave a thoughtful, genuine comment. 

Really, I can't say enough about going out and visiting some of the other links. It will hopefully bring some traffic to your blog. It is totally okay if you need a day or two, but I'd like for each participant to visit at least one or two of the other blogs by the end of the week. I think that's a doable request.

Here's the topic again in case you missed it the other day:

Moms

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A MOM TO PARTICIPATE. Please feel free to use this as a question and answer post, or use it as a loose guide to write your post however you like. Add or omit any questions you like, and feel free to embellish with photos!

~What's the best thing about your mom?

~If your mom isn't around, do you have a family member or mentor who can stand in for her?

~What's your relationship with your mom like (do you just tolerate each other, or is she your best confidant)?

~If there is one quality about your mom that you could emulate, what would it be?

~What's the best advice your mom has ever given you?

~Describe the most embarrassing outfit your mom made you wear when you were growing up. (If you have a photo of this, I will give you ten bonus points!)

~If you're a mom, what's your favorite thing about motherhood? What's the most difficult?

Okay, enough chit chat. The party is open for new links until 8 pm (ET) on Thursday. Link up here where you see the blue inlinkz button and have fun encouraging each other. Please email me if your link doesn't appear on the list with the others. (Sometimes it takes a few tries)



Here's my contribution this month:

This is my mom. We call her Mimi.

She doesn't remember how to find my blog, and she can't really figure out Facebook, so I doubt she'll see this.

I've known her for twenty-faux whole years. From the days I had my parents all to myself

to the days the other two showed up.

Some days, she dressed me in cute things that I'd let my own girls wear:

And then, there are no words (I'm 3rd from the Right, by the way. And yes, those are knee pads. We had to slide across the floor.):

Mimi sometimes forgets that I am twenty-faux and a mother of two. Unsolicited "advice" is often "offered," but I think it must be hard to look at your grown children and just. let. go. Especially when you only live 5 minutes from your oldest and most clever daughter.

The thing I appreciate most about Mimi is how generous she is with her time and how much joy she finds in her grandkids. She offers to spend time with the girls when she knows I've had it, and to see the excitement on Natalie and Michaela Byrd's faces when they see her car pull in the driveway says it all.

I've learned a lot about mothering from Mimi. My favorite part of being a mom is knowing that two little people love me for me. They don't care what I look like, if I have make-up on, if I'm wearing designer shoes, or if I like to sing and dance when we're home. The hardest part of being a mom is the built-in mommy guilt/worry that they must inject you with at the hospital before you leave.

I give Mimi a hard time over the fact that she can't figure out what Etsy is, and she still wears skirts that make me sad, and she stomps her foot when she gets mad, and she always complains about how cold my house is....

But the truth is, I couldn't ask for a better mom. She was the mom who read stories to me, made me Barbie clothes, made me play outside, made me stick with dance, encouraged creativity, didn't kill me when I brought home a D in math, and parented me through the last of my teen years by herself after my dad passed.

Thanks, Mom.

"My mother is a poem

I'll never be able to write, 

Though everything I write

Is a poem to my mother."

-Sharon Doubiago

Thanks to all of you for visiting today!