Thanks for all your kind words. It was fun to share my wonderful surprise with you. Typical of young men, my son failed to let me know that, while his plane was leaving early Monday morning, his girlfriend's flight home was not until 5:00 that evening! So, I had to make runs down to the airport in Albuquerque twice in one day . . . and entertain the girlfriend until she left. Yes, he'd invited his new gf to come stay as well. She was very nice, thankfully; an archaeologist that he'd met while still in grad school. Sooooo, I took her out to lunch and then to the beautiful Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, a museum in Albuquerque showcasing the art, artifacts, etc. from all the many pueblos in New Mexico. She loved it. But, I've been catching up on work around here ever since! As for cookbook computer programs, thanks for your thoughts and ideas on that, too. Yes, on one hand, I do think that I could make up a very basic one myself but, as OA mentioned, a search engine to find specific recipes based on ingredients at hand, sounds so practical. Like you, OA, I'm really not that interested in a lot of new recipes; I have probably over a thousand of my own favs that I'd like to put in and then access. Good point about the ability to add pics, too! My last cookbook program was MasterCook, which was great until it developed it's problems and caused so many computer problems. It had a feature to not only search but, as you start to add an ingredient or cooking term, a short selection pops up to choose from. I quickly got used to this feature and it made adding my recipes so much easier. It also had a spell check with all the gazillion cooking terms and ingredients in it. That was very handy, as well. I think I'm going to read more on the Living Cookbook program and make a decision today. Gotta run and take out the trash and the dogs now, though. Lynn

The gifts that my mom who is 84 seems to enjoy most are gift certificates for massages, pedicures, to have her hair done, and manicures. She can get her hair, manicure and pedicure all done at the same place and the massage done elsewhere. She feels pampered and would never spend the money for the other things. The other most important thing is Time with us. I better get busy shopping for mom also. It will most likely be a massage this time. Oh also,... I go to our grocery store and buy her an unusual food item that she would never pick up. Maybe a cut of meat or something frozen that is a new entree, a package of different soup mix,etc. We all get in the rut of buying and eating the same thing. Happy mothers day to all of you mothers. Deanna

SheilaJoyce - we share the same special present. My son was born on Tuesday, May 13, 1980. He is my miracle baby as my DH and I had infertility problems and he was conceived one month after I had major surgery so that I could conceive. Never got pregnant again after that! Told him today that his birthday trumps Mother's Day cause I wouldn't be a mom without him!

My son surprised me with tickets to see Aladdin on Broadway yesterday. :) Never mind he's almost 28 years old. He figured we loved the movie when he was a kid, so would enjoy the show and he was right! We did. Afterwards we headed back to the island for dinner in a local restaurant. All in all a perfect day. The only thing missing was my Mom who passed away almost two years ago. I miss her every single day. :) Oh and my memory was jogged about a peach tree we bought the first year we moved into our house when my kids were 2 and 6 years old. Every year we took a picture of the kids in front of the tree until our marriage fell apart. Worst memory? In I should have known at the time? LOL. My son was about 20 months and had quite a vocabulary already. My ex didn't get me anything for mothers day. Not a card with my son's name on it, nothing. I was so mad I confronted him and suggested that the least he could have done was tell our son to say Happy Mother's day to me. He insisted that would be too hard to teach our son. I turned to my son and said, J, please say "Happy Mother's Day." J then said, "Happu Muddah's Day Mommy." For father's day that year, I taught my Son to say, "Happy Father's Day" and found a picture of our son and I snuggling, put it in a cheap frame, wrapped it up, gave it to our son and had our son give it to his father and say, "Happy Father's Day." Needless to say, his father never forgot mother's day again. Too bad it took me another 14 years to see the writing on the wall.