Just another reason to love my mom

My mom retired from full time work a couple of years ago.  Before I had Claire and I was working full time she would call on a random weekday morning around 10 and ask if I wanted to go get a pedicure and lunch or see a movie.  I had to remind her that I was working and, sadly, could not just up and leave whenever I wanted.

Seeing my mom in retirement has once again reminded me that I was raised by inspiring and incredible people.  Now, when I say retirement I have to tell you that she's hardly retired at all.  She still works probably 20 hours a week as a contractor but in the free time that she does have she and her friends do yoga three times a week.  They have a private instructor who tailors the class to retired bodies.  They have a water-color painting group and they meet twice a week to paint and give feedback and instruction.  They also sometimes go on painting or yoga retreats.  My mother also reads and writes and has book clubs and a writing group to keep her busy.

The reason for our whirlwind trip to Utah last week was that the painting group was having their annual tea party and art show.  This year in addition to the several tables full of treats that were all made by hand, the art show included a book--so I guess it was their book release party as well.

Here are my mom's pages from the book (if I had more computer sense than I do I would know how to merge this together and keep the quality good enough to still read it.  As it is, that is not the case so you're stuck with two different images but at least you can read it)

Oh, please, oh please, let me be the kind of retired lady who throws elaborate tea parties and self publishes a book of my artwork and writing.