Mama Told Me...

Since today is Mother's Day, we've decided to honor our mothers by passing along some of their best advice and words of wisdom. I was going to illustrate this post with pictures of famous Mother/Daughter duos but, after taking a look around, decided not to. Here's a link ( 15 Famous Mother-Daughter Look-Alikes ) just in case you're curious. But, I have to warn you, it comes along with my own piece of advice (hey, I'm a mom. I'm allowed): Forget plastic surgery unless your goal is to look like an aging freak. I'm just sayin'.  

Anyway, since I couldn't find any pictures I liked, I decided to post some advice-ful music videos to go along with our own Mom Advice. Enjoy!

Okay, it's Mother's Day. I have a wonderful mom and we're very close so, I probably can't help but make this a little mushy.

The best mom advice, that I still remember and follow to this day, is to never write something down that I don't want others to read. This, of course, meant not writing nasty notes about Heather Stuck-Up or oh-my-gosh-he' s hot notes about the cute new guy. Interesting that I turned into a writer, who has entire books published that I hope LOTS of people read!

But better than the little bits of advice, my mom has taught me the big stuff. Like the idea of being true to myself, doing things that make me happy, surrounding myself with positive people.

My mom is my best supporter, she knows the real me-- and she loves me anyway. *g*

My mom has given me lots of great advice over the years, not least because she's an amazing woman and a terrific friend. But there are three that stick out for me.

1. Don't forget to clean the lint trap. Practical and easy to accomplish.

2. 350 degrees for an hour. It works for a surprisingly large number of recipes.

3. The last one has a story behind it. I was in college a few hours from home and we were in the middle of a major cold snap. I called my mom to complain (I'm not a cold-weather girl) and she listened patiently for a few minutes. Then she said, "sounds like a good night to curl up in bed with a good book. Or someone who's read one."

How can you argue with advice like that?

:) Love you, mom!

Kate

My mom gave me a lot of bad advice (with good intentions, though!) but the best advice she gave me was about marriage. I'm not sure how she got to be so good at marriage - just a smart lady, I guess! 

Her advice:

Don't nag. If you sound like his mother, he'll think of you as his mother, not his wife and lover.

Don't hit him with bad news the minute he walks in the door - the plugged toilet, broken window and kid's F in Math can wait half an hour.

Have lots of sex. Lots. Of. Sex. He won't care if you can cook or if the house is clean if you have lots of sex.

My mom is the most practical person on earth. I'm always telling the Diva that her aunt and I are a lot more fun than our mom was, and that her and the boys get to do stuff we never did, but...wait. I'm not supposed to be bitching, am I?

Two things about my mom: practicality and unfailing, unceasing, unconditional love. My mom always taught me: do your chores before you have fun, pay your bills before you buy the pretty shoes, do what you have to do first, and then you can enjoy the fun stuff w/o the other stuff hanging over your head. That advice helped me avoid the kinds of problems a lot of my friends had in their twenties. I wish I'd followed her advice on finances, but oh well...

And my mom always told us that no matter what we did, no matter what happened, she'd always love us without reserve, and we knew she meant it. When I was a child, Mama was safety, and warmth, and love. If I could get to Mama, I'd be alright. I want my Diva to feel that way about me.

Things My Mom Didn’t Tell Me

My mom wasn’t much for telling me things—she sort of led by example. But there’s one incident that stuck with me, mainly because I was such a moron about it at the time. I’d agreed to substitute for another girl at work one summer when a friend invited me to go to New Mexico with her family. This was a very big deal, and I told my mom I wanted to do it. She said no—I’d made a promise, and I had to keep it. I argued that my coworker could find somebody else, but my mom was adamant: I’d given my word. Needless to say, we spent a very chilly weekend, but I’ve never forgotten the principle. If you promise, you do it, no excuses, no wimping out. A very valuable (and in my case, painful) lesson to learn.

I think the most memorable piece of advice I got from my mother was probably, "Don't go down the slide headfirst." Sure enough, the first time I did it anyway I smacked my face on a rock and nearly broke a tooth.

Two other ideas I got from my mother that have really stayed with me are...

#1. You can't know you won't like something until you've tried it. I'm pretty sure she was just talking about food, but I like to apply it to just about anything.  Sorry, Mom. *g*

#2. Trees are not brown. Whether you're painting a picture or writing a book or whatever you're doing,  it's important to really look at your subject--without letting your preconceived ideas get in the way. You might be surprised to find that what you "think" something looks like is not at all the way it is.

A few years ago, I put together a small collection of poems I'd written that were mostly about motherhood. I'm giving them away today as  a Mother's Day gift to whoever wants them. You can download them: Here.

My mother has given me a lot of great advice over the years but one that has always stayed with me is not to worry about what other people think, people other than my mother anyway. LOL A few years back I decided to shift gears with my writing (I'd been targeting Harlequin when I wrote my first two books) and try erotic romance. This was before erotic romance had really hit the NY publishing scene, but like a lot of other things with my writing, I obsessed about whether I should write that hot. I'd been talking about it with my mother and sort of feeling her out about it, and she looked at me and said, "Even if you decided tomorrow that you wanted to be a porn star, I'd support you." LOL Love you, Mom.

And there you have it. Hope all you mothers out there are having a great Mother's Day. Don't forget to comment for a chance to win this month's prize: A Taste of Honey by PG Forte.