My Mom and I canning peaches from my grandparent's orchard.

Besides cooking my Mom has passed on her love for sewing as well.

Yesterday, I had a conversation with my Mom on the phone while I was working in my flower beds. I like to put her on speaker phone and pull weeds, sort of a long distance gardening, I highly recommend trying it! While we were talking I told her this story: at work, I was talking to someone who knows two of my Mom's sisters who live in the same town as I do. My mom is the oldest of five girls and there is fifteen years between her and the youngest. This coworker said to me "I do not know your Grandma, I have never met her, but from knowing some of her daughters and granddaughters, I know that she is a fabulous woman." This was a great statement and believe it or not it was not the first person who has said that to me before. You see, my Grandma is not perfect and all five of her daughters have been annoyed with her at one time or another for things you only get annoyed at your mom for. The thing that makes her noticed by those who have not met her is the lessons she has taught her daughters who have in turn taught their children. Lessons like kindness always wins, people notice when you give donations but remember when you give your time, a strong faith and being involved in church, taking time to be with family even if it is a phone call to those far away, having a marriage that lasts, and always having an open house and room at the table.

Today I celebrate my Mom, my Grandmas, my Mother-in-law, my Husband's Grandmas, and all those women who were influential to these women years before I was born. Just like this person who was amazed by my Grandma but has never meet her, I am amazed by those in my family years before me that paved the road for who I get to be today. It makes me think of a song by Joey and Rory called A Long Line of Love.

As I think about what I am grateful for from my Mom and other members of my family, I realize my joy of gardening and cooking was inevitable. Here is why:

My Mom always cooked us homemade meals which almost always included a yummy dessert. Recently I did a post on her apple pie recipe and I had to laugh when she commented on how I could have made it look a lot better, especially the crust! I love that because next time I will work really hard to make a pie that looks as good as it taste.
My mom's parents have a huge garden and orchard. I grew up getting to go visit them and experiencing gardening with them. I have so many memories there, from husking corn on crazy hot days to harvesting rhubarb to sell to a local bakery. Many of my visits there would involve not only picking fruit, like cherries, but we would end up taking them in the house and making a pie out of them. My Grandma is so patient while teaching in the kitchen. We actually took some of our wedding pictures in their orchard.

My Dad's parents own a bakery in the town I grew up in. They sell everything from donuts and wedding cakes to the best German coffee cake you have ever tried. My Grandma also had a garden and fruit trees that she cooked with and canned.
My mother-in-law's parents are from a small town just north of Indianapolis where he was the mayor and pharmacist for many years. In his pharmacy store he had a soda fountain counter that to this day my mother-in-law talks about. Her memories of it sound like she is describing a image from a Normal Rockwell painting and it warms my heart.
My father-in-law's parents, besides have other jobs ( bus driver and policeman) and two young kids, bought an ice cream stand and made it into an full menu drive-in during the late '50's. Dor-tee's still serves lemon ice cream and toasty burgers today. We can never visit my husband's hometown without getting a vanilla coke. Often we eat at their house for what his Grandma calls a "small meal" but consists of more food than I cook in one week. One of her favorite dishes to make for family is her bread pudding, you can read more about it and the recipe here.

To some this might not matter, but to me to know that my love for food, gardening, entertaining and feeding others has been an a generational love is so very important. This love does not just come out of thin air but rather the generations before me have led me to this point. This Mother's Day, I am thankful for my Mom and all she has done to help me love and appreciate my family and for making really good apple pie.

Have you ever taken a half baked pie six blocks down the street to have a friend finish baking it for you? I can officially say I can check that off my list of baking disasters. Never have I been so happy that I have helpful friends who also have a professional cupcake kitchen inside their house. Somewhere between work, blogging, making pies for a fundraiser and attending our small group on time ... life got in the way. There I was standing in my kitchen needing to leave in five minutes to make it to the next thing and my pies were about twenty minutes out. It was one of those total flight or fight moments where you are shaking till it is over. However it is those moments that bring out true colors of those you depend on. It gave me one more reason to love my friend for helping me out and my husband for being patient.

The only thing this made me think of was this: had this moment happened with another area of interest for me, like sewing, it might have been a long time before I attempted it again. Yet food is so important to our daily lives, you can get frustrated with cooking but you are going to eat again and chances are you are going to at least re-heat leftovers for yourself. We all are going to at some point get back on the horse.

Food is beautiful like that, the way it makes a common ground, how people can be brought together by food. From Easter lunch with a large family to a crisis that where a friend lends a hand there are always tense moments. One of the best pieces of advice I got when I started to learn to cook and bake more is “be fearless…it is just food!” The second great piece of advice came from a close friend/sister-in-law who said “sometimes you just have to eat the crap!”

There is something about just going for it, learning and taking chances and creating something new. Yes, there is that chance you might eat some burnt rice or suffer through a not-that-tasty dish, you might even have to humble yourself and let someone finish your pies for you. This translates to so many areas of my life including blogging. After letting fear hold me back I've jumped in, all or nothing, because the fear of failing was so much less than the fear of not trying. There is always that chance, that in that breakdown you find the beauty of the accomplishment of doing it yourself. The beauty in the breakdown is knowing you have tired.

Journal