Kirk says,

I was once told that I measure everything on a scale of "cuteness." It's true, and my mom and I share a love for all things cute.

Sometime during my adolescence, my mom undertook a recipe card project of epic proportions. She was tired of not remembering whether or not we liked a recipe in her recipe file, so she decided to start making notes on the cards and then laminating them. When I went away to college, one of my leaving-home-projects was copying my mom's recipe cards, so I have photo copies of her cards in my own recipe file.

I often pull out a recipe and find something written on it like, "Sherry says this is the best pasta she's ever had," "Dawn recommends making these in the crock pot," or "Kirk said, 'Can we just have hot dogs?'"

Tonight, I had my mom over for dinner for sweet potato fries and corn flake chicken. (Sometimes you just gotta.) The recipe card says, "[a picture of a heart] I bake these for a healthier version. Kirk likes them fried better! Kirk couldn't wait to tell Dad about the great chicken Mom made while he was working at Clear Lake 6/96."

It makes me laugh, but it also makes me appreciate my mom. She was always coming up with little systems to make our house run more smoothly (laundry baskets for us to unload our own clean laundry, a white board to keep track of our behavior, and making notes on her recipe cards). None of the systems stuck around very long, but they are sweet reminders of her good intentions.

And...they're just so cute.