Before I talk about my mother's day plans, I want to just come clean emotionally about something.

I believe it was Father's Day a few years ago, and my brother and I did absolutely nothing special for my Dad. Normally, I bedazzle the envelope with balloons and multi-colored highlighted confetti, but we slapped "Dad" on and didn't seal the envelope. In the card, we wrote a one-liner "have a nice father's day". We didn't get him anything special either. I could tell my Dad was seriously hurt by this, and this is something I always remember just seeing how hurt my Dad was by the lack of effort to make his day special. I am super close to my Dad, and I pride myself in putting others first, and maybe he has forgotten about it, but to me every big holiday I remember the look of absolute heartache on my Dad's face and how unloved he had felt, so now I make sure that every big holiday I do something above and beyond special for my family.

So, back to Mother's Day. I just finished making chocolate covered strawberries and red licorice sticks with sprinkles on top. I ended up buying way too much chocolate chips to melt. I bought three bags because online it said I'd need twice as much, but I used one bag of melted chocolate chips and that was enough for everything. I also bought brownies to make but now I'm thinking it's too much. I won a basket filled with goodies at the junior college's community day that I'm giving her as well as a purple summer kimono robe. I hope it fits her.