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Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful mothers out there! But most importantly to my wonderful mother! This is my 4th Mother’s Day as a mother, and every year this holiday comes around, it still feels odd, like I don’t really deserve a day for my own motherhood because I haven’t yet met all the challenges that come with being a mother, or found a healthy balance of mothering and my individuality. I’m sure someday I will say to myself, “Ah, Mother’s Day, I so deserve this.” Until then, I am more than excited to honor that beautiful woman who gave me life and successfully raised me to mirror her kindness and compassion (and good looks!)

I wanted to put together some sort of visual representation of all the things that remind me so much of Mom every time I stumble across them out in the big wide world. There are so many simple things in life that can bring back tiny flashes of memories from childhood, or make someone’s face pop into your mind. I’ve found a collection of items from Etsy that make me think, “Hey! Mom!” and without further ado, here they are in no particular order…

James Dean. My mother loves James Dean. And Marlon Brando. And Robert Duvall. And John Travolta. And many many other actors and actresses, and just movies in general; especially the “classics.” If you’re playing Trivial Pursuit, you want my mom on your team because she will probably know the answer to that “Anthony Quinn portrayed Attila the Hun in this 1954 film co-starring Sophia Loren” question.

Vintage Purses. Who has the coolest vintage purse collection? You know who! When I was a little girl, there was nothing that I would rather do on a Saturday afternoon than sneak into my parents’ room and cherry-pick some fabulous selections from Mom’s accordian wall rack. There were slinky mesh purses with chain straps, beaded handbags, folk embroidered patterns and tassles of all sizes! It was a wonderland of tactile delicacies for my tiny hands!

Trivets & Roosters. Two-for-one! My mother’s kitchen is decorated (along with the perfect blue color scheme) with trivets and roosters. Many very handsome roosters in various forms of artistic medium are perched in nooks and crannies and corners. Mostly Norwegian- and Scandinavian-style trivets hang on the wall and sit on the counter — they are both decorative and functional. Utilitarianism is yet another quirk I have inherited, much to my benefit!

GO CUBS! After every Chicago Cubs game, you can look above Wrigley Field to see a flag flapping in the breeze. If you are my mom, you want that flag to have a great big “W” on it! This would be an awesome addition to Mom’s refrigerator, which is a collage mosaic of magnets — photos, memories, mementos, souvenirs, and exclamations of personality. Would there even be room?! She would find some or make some, because that’s what moms do best. :)

Corningware. If you search for vintage Corningware on Etsy, you’ll find the majority of the results showcase one of three classic patterns: Bluebirds of Happiness, Cornflower Blue, and The Spice of Life. My mother had a-piece-or-three in each of these designs; all beautiful, all durable, all capable of aiding in the creation of delicious foodstuffs. My personal all-time favorite Corningware-housed creation? Two words: Cornbread Casserole. (mmm)

Clogs. Pretty much exactly like these! Mom used to wear these brown leather, wooden soled hippie clogs all the time and they were just about the perfect shoe. She’d wear them all summer and on vacations, never even needing socks, easy to kick off. I remember walking around in her clogs when I was little, and feeling the embedded impression of her feet. She hasn’t worn them for years, but I bet they’re resting nostalgically in a shoebox somewhere.

Tins. All around the house (mostly in the kitchen) are vintage and not-so-vintage product tins. Crackers, cookies, coffee, you name it, you’ll probably see it setting atop my mother’s cabinets and shelves. These were so much fun when I was little! Being a child of the 80′s, pretty much all the food I remember was packaged in plastic or cardboard. Contrast that with the old tins and I would think, “Wow! Potato chips used to come in a metal can?! That is so cool!”

Pins. Vikings. My mother is not much of a “jewelry” person (neither am I), other than her wedding ring, and an occassional necklace worn with a dress for a special occassion. To make up for this in her own little way, you will rarely see here without a pin or brooch affixed to her shirt. She has quite the extensive collection! This particular pin is even in the viking theme, no less! Norwegian blood runs thick through our veins!

Glass Vases. These also work wonderfully as “potion” vials, as my 6-year-old self would like to point out. (lol) But more importantly, they are rather useful for holding fantastic bouquets of lilac, which grew abundantly from the row of bushes in our backyard. The windows and doors would be opened up and the scent of lilacs would gush throughout the house. We didn’t really need to bring the flowers indoors, but they looked so darned pretty in the milky glass vases.

Tupperware. Real Tupperware. Not the chinsy, 88¢ per dozen, Made in China, “food storage containers” you get at Walmart these days. These were built to last, and they did. I had eaten many a leftover snack out of these campy, pleated lid containers. My mom would label them with scotch tape and a Sharpie, making sure to include the date, “Peaches 6/19″. Even so, sometimes you would find the “science experiments” in the back of the fridge.

Coffee Mugs. Coffee coffee coffee! My mom loves it. Many-a-morning our house would be filled with the smell of coffee. We would come home from church on Sunday and my mom would grind some beans with the ultra-cool wall-mounted manual-crank antique coffee grinder and brew a fresh pot while watching The McLaughlin Group and preparing lunch. She has a multitude of coffee mugs, again with a lot of them being Norwegian-themed, but some just funny or ironic. Among my personal favorites are: “Recipe for Lutefisk: Take one lutefisk, Throw it away” and “I’d rather be 40 than pregnant” (she was both), and, of course, “UFF-DA!”

Take all these things, and add in a bazillion others, seen and unseen, physical and metaphysical, good bad up down left right light dark swirl it all up and dunk it in love and there you have my mother. She is one of my most loved and admired people in the whole of the universe and nothing could ever change that or take it away! LOVE YOU, MOM! (heart) HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!