dispatches from quilt city

Advice

So, several people asked me what I had published in Real Simple, after reading my post about Hollie Larkey's recent ad in the same magazine.

They had asked readers the best advice they had ever gotten from their mothers and I wrote that my mom always told me, "Men are just desserts." A valuable antidote, especially if you are as boy crazy as I was during my teenage years.

It is not the only great piece of advice I have ever gotten from my mother or from any of the people I love for that matter, and I thought maybe I would put together a little collection of my favorites to help us all through whatever trials or tribulations 2008 has in store.

"You have until your children are 3 to call their bluff. If you don't do it by then, it's all over." - Mom

"Babies don't grow good till you drop them at least once." - My great-grandmother Allen

"You can't love your children too much." - Nanny

"The most important part of being married is learning to fight fair." (Don't remember who told me this but it is true, true, true.)

"Get mad at the man but never get mad at the jewelry." - Mema

"When people show you who they are, believe them." - Maya Angelou

"I take criticism seriously, but I never take it personally." - Hillary Clinton

"Just sit back and watch it like it's a movie." - Mema

"Refusing to forgive is like taking poison and expecting someone else to die." - Oprah

"You are trying to reason with idiots and idiots don't understand reason." - Nicholas