Shifting Gears

Many years ago on this date I learned the real meaning of unconditional love – one look at Tamara Louise ( a middle name we share along with my mom and none of us used after marriage) and I experienced emotions I never dreamed existed.  Love in the purest form is reserved for my daughters – and now my granddaughters – and today I celebrate her life.

I took her to lunch today at the Tower Club but unfortunately she was upstaged by members of my Rotary Club – still I appreciated very much that she gave up a major social-commitment timeframe to be there for me.  We did celebrate last night when we had Tammy and Steve over for dinner.  Tradition in our family is for the birthday celebrant to choose their menu and Tammy is smart enough to know the limitations on my culinary talents.  For last night’s meal she reached back in time to an old favorite from her childhood – one I had forgotten about – my version of Mexican Villa tacos.

I got the taco shells and sauces from Mexican Villa just like I did when she was a kid – forgot that I used to get their chips too but she was happy with the On The Border chips I had on hand.  Along with the taco meat I had shredded white American cheese, shredded iceburg lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream and guacamole so we could fix DIY tacos.  I’ll have to admit they were pretty darned yummy and hopefully a new birthday tradition has been born.  Since Steve made her a fabulous 4-layer lemon curd cake for today, I fixed her favorite, Strawberry Pretzel Salad, which does double duty at our house as either salad or desert.  She got a card and one gift last night but has another one coming next week – I’ll try to post a photo of it on this blog so you can see why I’m so excited about it (and hopefully she will be too!)

So here’s to Tammy – my extremely talented, smart, funny, beautiful daughter (chip off the old block, huh?) who has enriched my life in ways far beyond which I could ever have imagined.  She has endured the curse of resembling me physically (sorry about that one – talk w/God since He turned out the final product!) and has now progressed to the phase where she can grin and bear it and sometimes say “thank you.”  The beautiful person she has become is in no small way related to me – I tried to raise her the right way which means I reverted to all the things my parents did even though I said I never would.  Then when she left the nest she really soared – far beyond anything I could ever have helped her achieve. 

So here’s to Tammy – may you have your best year yet full of laughter, love and lots of Coach bags!  I love you very much.  Mom

PS – I’m sorry I got rid of the Frankoma lazy susan we always used for tacos – even though it was ugly, I never dreamed it would be worth $40 on eBay.