Friday I'm in Love: My Mom Is A Badass

My mom turns 75 today! Happy birthday, Mom! 

You'll notice that the title of this post is, "My Mom Is A Badass", rather than something like "Happy 75th Birthday, Mom!". My original birthday post idea - for 75 is definitely a post-worthy landmark birthday - was to write 75 great things about my mom.

Which I could totally do, except that I also have to do things like sleep. So then I though I'd just pick one great thing per decade, so that it would be more like 7.5 great things about my mom. And in thinking about it that way, I realized that my mom is a total badass.

7.5 Great Things About My Mom, Or Why My Mom Is A Total Badass

1. One of my mom's earliest memories is celebrating V-E day (that's Victory in Europe Day, for those of you who aren't WWII history nerds).

2. In high school, my mom managed to be a cheerleader AND in the band AND a straight-A student. I think they invented the word "overachiever" just to describe her.

3. After college, my mom became a reporter. In addition to covering news, she also learned to swear like a sailor and drink copious amounts of gin - all stuff she can still do today.

4. My mom was the first woman general news editor of United Press International.

5. People I went to elementary school with still remember my mom as "The Picture Lady" (she came in every so often to teach us about art history) and/or "The Newspaper Lady" (she ran a newspaper with the 6th graders).

6. My mom quit smoking after doing it for something like 40 years.

7. My mom slept on a crappy cot in the dining room of our first house for three weeks after Ironflower was born (cooking and cleaning non-stop), so Hot Guy and I could adjust to parenthood. She did the same thing after Lovebug was born, though that time she actually got a bed in a bedroom.

7.5 My mom had major abdominal surgery in November, somewhat less major abdominal surgery again in January. . . .and she's already back in dance class.