Today would have been my mother's 95th birthday. Today's post is dedicated to her memory. She always liked the picture above. I think she was beautiful. She was a beautiful woman - outside, but especially inside. She was a real "people" person. She loved people and they loved her. She was always thinking of what she could do for somebody else. I wish I was more like her, but I'm afraid in this way I am more like my Dad. In case you're wondering why the Dolly Parton song is playing first this morning, (Coat of Many Colors) I put it at the top because everytime I hear it, I cry. Silly Charlotte, why would you want to cry? It makes me think of my mother. We were not as poor as Dolly but we never had much money when I was growing up, and I know my mother sacrificed many times so that I could have something nice.
This is one of my earliest photos of my mother and me together. It was taken in one of those little booths where you put the money in and out comes a strip of photos. I can remember when I was a kid everytime I saw one of them I wanted to have pictures taken. I have always liked pictures, and I especially like this one.
I think this picture exemplifies my mother's life. She was a worker. Of course this picture was taken in the years before clothes dryers - or at least before she had one.
This is one of her last birthdays. I like this picture because she looks so happy to be with her grandson - her only grandson - on her birthday.
How I wish she was here today so I could hug her and wish her a Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday Mom. Actually I didn't call her Mom, I always called her Mommy and later Granny because that was what everyone in the family started calling her even before she had grandchildren. Some of her nieces and a nephew started calling her that because they didn't have a living grandmother and they "adopted" her as their Granny. Incidentally, that nephew is now married to Ginger of Enchanting Cottage.
This seagull came here with us from California. We bought him to put out by our hot tub on the deck there. He looked good there, but now he has found a place to perch up on the fence around our pool pump. He's a long way from the sea. Maybe we could call him a desertgull now.
This statue was in a niche in our entry way for many many years. We bought it right after we moved here. A couple of years ago we decided we would rather have her outside by the pool and something else in the niche.
This rose bush behind the pool wasn't blooming when the picture in yesterday's post was taken. It is really pretty now. Roses do well here in the spring and fall and even winter. In the summer when it gets really hot, they get really stressed out. There are less blooms and they are much smaller. But the poor little bush struggles through the summer and revives again when it gets cooler. 
This is an ocotillo plant in the corner. I think it is pretty when it gets these orange blooms out on the end. The birdbath in the left corner was in our backyard in California for many years. We've been here 18 years, so it is getting pretty old. Soon I can call it my antique birdbath. I guess a lot of things around here are getting to be antique - including me. In the right hand corner is a bouganvilla. It will soon look like it does in the picture below. It would take over the whole area if you let it. We have to keep cutting it back. It freezes and looks terrible in the winter, but in the summer it never gets too hot for it. The hotter it gets the more it thrives.
