Mom's friendly reminders.

My mom had a knack for things. No, seriously. She was blunt, but in a way that wasn't in your face. She told you what you needed to hear, but she didn't beat you upside the head.

Many years ago, when I still lived at home, she got a breadmaker. This was during the breadmaker craze in the 90's. We loved fresh bread. All the time. It was warm, it was fresh, it counted as homemade. She used it, I used it. That breadmaker got a workout. but, every so often, the bread got stuck in the pan. Not an unusual thing...right? BUT...how do you get bread out of the pan? You take a knife and jam it down the side of the pan to unstick it! At least, that's what I did. Until...I found this note: This was her subtle way of telling me to stop jamming the knife into the pan.



This past Saturday afternoon, I was in the basement, and I saw the breadmaker, sitting on the shelf, looking very lonely. And suddenly, I had a craving for cinnamon raisin bread. I knew I had all of the ingredients in the pantry....so, I brought the lonely breadmaker upstairs to the kitchen, plopped it onto the counter...and opened it up...to find that note.

Her lasting subtlety.

And I smiled. No, I didn't cry, I didn't even get a frog in my throat. I smiled, because I knew that she was watching me, chuckling, because she knew that her lesson stuck...even if she had to write it on a 3X5 card for me to get the message.

And that cinnamon raisin bread was GOOD!!!!