Remembering the Receiving, and Now Doing The Giving: The Scary Mommy Thanksgiving Project

Last year, Jill Smokler, of ScaryMommy, gathered her Scary Mommy Nation together, and more than 400 families in need were able to celebrate with a Thanksgiving meal they would have otherwise gone without. Over $20,000 was raised and the effort garnered international attention, appearing on Good Morning America, Nightline, the homepages of Yahoo, Huffington Post and more. That was the success of The Scary Mommy Thanksgiving Project. 

This year, 25 families are wait listed and 931 families have been adopted, with almost $45,000.00 in donations now raised. But we need to move fast, Thanksgiving is almost here.

A $50 gift card to their local grocery store to buy the makings for a Thanksgiving dinner will be mailed two weeks before Thanksgiving to allow these families in need ample time to shop for and prepare their holiday dinner. It's almost time to get these cards out.

My children have grown up with full kitchen cabinets, and in my entire life as a mother, I have been so very fortunate that I have never had to worry about not having enough to eat on a holiday. Especially on Thanksgiving, when the nation celebrates with a table ready to buckle from the enormity of the feast.

But, as a child growing up and with parents new to this country, mine was a family with many small children, and one working single parent. Through the generosity of our church, we always received a food basket for Thanksgiving. I can still see it: a frozen turkey, boxes of cake mix, instant potatoes, pudding, cans of sweet potatoes, green beans and corn, ready made rolls and bags of stuffing mix.

I was so grateful, we were all so grateful, every year when that basket was walked into our house. My grandmother and mother were moved to tears of appreciation. When the church people rang our bell and delivered the basket, we were left speechless with gratitude. I had a wish back then, of one day being someone who could do the same -- deliver a basket of food to a family.

I want to do everything I can to get a family their meal. I've been in those shoes, and I still remember the joy of receiving the baskets. The clapping, the smiles, the light as air feeling that we'd be having a full holiday meal, that we'd be with -- rather than without.

It's so important to break the stereotype of people not having things because they don't work. My mother worked three jobs, but recently widowed with six children in a country new to her... we were lucky our bills were paid for essentials, much less the extras that holidays bring. And the holiday gift of a food basket, well... it spoke volumes of the kindness of others, and how the poor are not forgotten.

Now that I am able to help, it is me who feels so very fortunate, to be able to do the giving with a joyful heart.

I'm in. I will spread the word of The Scary Mommy Thanksgiving Project, powered by the Scary Mommy Nation, because I still remember having been one of 'those people' that needed a compassionate hand. With Scary Mommy's Community, we got this. We can feed these families. One family at a time.

Through The Thanksgiving Project, we have a beautiful opportunity to be in the fortunate position, of giving. We can be the light in the tunnel for so many in darkness right now.

How about paying it forward and helping others in need as a gift to each other this year? Involve your children, sit them on your lap and show them what you, as a family, are going to do for another family, and let them feel how good that feels. Explain that just because we aren't in need doesn't mean others aren't in need. Begin to model generosity and goodwill and the bliss of peace that comes from sharing what we have, it's a lesson they'll imitate into adulthood.

And to Scary Mommy and her army? Please keep doing what you're doing. Because this grown woman here is forever grateful for all that she was given, through the generosity of others. 

I love this program so much because of the joy I remember as a little girl when a basket brought into our living room, giving my family the assurance that their Thanksgiving table would be laden with the spirit of love from others. Yes, children know when something kind has come their way.

I'm happy I'm the one able to give now. Thank you for continuing this, Jill and everyone. It’s a tremendous undertaking, but it's what keeps us human and responsible for one another. It is so very good. 

A $50 gift card means the world to a family right now, and it makes Thanksgiving possible.

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And if you’re in a position to give a little extra this season, please do… DETAILS HERE or

You can also mail a check to:
Scary Mommy
PO Box 20866
Baltimore MD 21209

You can also like Scary Mommy Nation on Facebook and share this post.

Here’s to a wonderful Thanksgiving, for not just a few, but all of us!

"100% of your donation will go to a family in need, and we will share as much information about “your” family as they are comfortable providing. Give $50 to support a whole family, or we’ll partner your donation – whatever it is – with other donors. Every dollar counts, so please give what you can."
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Spooky Stories!

We're sharing spooky stories on Purple Clover this week.

This one is from my husband's file, because the man is on the most opposite color wheel side of personality traits than me: he's not one for hyperbole nor embellishments, and if this story scared the beejeebus out of him, you know it's a good one.


On Purple Clover today: Furnished 1-Bedroom, Complete with Raven.

*thank you for your support on PC. I appreciate it.

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Fifty Shades of the Latino Accent

As a woman from a long line of people with accents — accents to you, not to me — I have always been at a loss as to why American women’s knees turn to jelly at the sound of a Spanish accent. My sisters are with me on this, too.

Men are just men, right? In my case, the men in my Colombian family are brown skinned, long sooty eye lashed, dark haired, and come with the ability, apparently, to make women from the USA tremble just by saying their name aloud. Cynthia trills out of their Colombian male mouths as Eseentya, Judith is breathed out Hoodeet, Anna becomes the hypnotizing Ahna.

You poor things don’t stand a chance, do you?

While growing up, our home in Wisconsin served as a stagecoach stop to my 500 family members in Colombia that needed a place to stay while they applied for citizenship in this country. My childhood memories are of a Prima/Cousin named Paulina, an uncle, Tio Hernando, an aunt, Tia Lilia, and a Primo/Cousin Julio Cesar, along with other assorted 2nd and 3rd degreed relatives who stayed with us.

Now, of all the above relateds mentioned here, it was my Primo, my Cousin Julio Cesar who has given me the clearest peek into how a Spanish accent knocks an American woman flat off her feet.

Julio Cesar was every bit the personification of his name. He came from South America to stay with us while establishing residency in the US. A single man, he was ready to participate in the swinging life of America. He knew no one in this country, so my older sister and I became his friends. He must have been about in his early 30′s, my sister in her mid 20′s, and I was old enough to go along on nights out to check out the dating escene.

One year there was a Valentine’s Day Singles Dance at a local community college. Julio Cesar got wind of it in his evening English as a Second Language classes, and insists we go. We go with him. To us on that night, he is just a guy, our cousin, who knows only the barest of English. Despite his lack of English, he has what all Latino men have going for them: well dressed, and confident. He knows he's to the nines, especially in America where Kmart T shirts and backwards worn baseball caps rule. Julio Cesar is ready for to meet dah loff.

We entered the auditorium where the the Valentine’s Day dance was being held, only an $8.00 admission was charged, which he gentlemanly picked up, and we walked in, full swing. The three of us, all looking sharp, make our first move over to the bar. There is a young, young young blonde co-ed next to us. She orders a Coca-cola, and Julio Cesar hears this, pays for it, not saying a word. Up to this point, she looks at him like the farmhand Eb on Green Acres, but, within seconds of hearing him say ees my plezoor to buy for joo, soh beeeyooteefool, right before our eyes we see her mindfully transform Julio from Eb to Andy Garcia.

There is an actual visual change that falls over her face, and her pupils dilate, her mouth hangs open, and she strikes a pose, tossing her hair over her shoulder. She is so struckdown turned on that her blacked irises now look like something from a Japanese anime. Her cheeks flush so fast I’m afraid she’ll burst into flames.

     Do you see her looking at him like he’s the last man on earth? my sister whispers to me.

     Yeah, what he lacked in looks he sure made up for with that accent, I respond back.

     Drooldrool, says the young blonde thing at the bar.

   The blonde is looking at him, our Eb Dawson cousin, like he’s the last Popsicle left in the freezer.    

      He starts a conversation with her, with near zero English, Joo are so beeyooteefool tonight.. like dees always?, he asks her.

       Drooldrool is all he gets back.

      Dees iss a skoool forr onlee dee beeyoooteefools, no?, he prods further.

      Drooldrool says blondie.

And then he turns to us, saying, "I weel not need a rrrrrride home wich joo tooonight."

A few months later, at Julio Cesar’s Barbizon English Today! class, the instructors try to tame his accent, suggesting he temper down the short letter "i" sound from his current double ee pronounciation to a simple "ih."

He came home from his lesson, miffed, Dey want mee too echange dee wayee Iee say dee I’s. Why would I want too looos dees accent? I can ask for aneeteeng and get eet.

I will never understand the lure of the Spanish accent to American women, but ask me about Gerard Butler and what I hear when he turns to the camera in Ugly Truth and invites the twins to "finish up with it then so I can wrestle you in jello." Bloody hell. that, THAT, I get.

That brogue of an accent, makes a woman's knees to jello, dunnit?

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Skylanders Swap Force: The Final Chapter

It's me, Auggie, writing my post for my mom on Skylanders because I said I would do four parts and this is part number FOUR and the last one. I knew I was going to save talking about Swap Force for the last one and I had to wait until they came out and they're out! Today we are going to talk about Swap Force!

Skylanders Post Number Four of Four

First, we might have to review for parents that don't know about Skylanders.

Skylanders Swap Force review 

I recently got Skylanders swap force, and I love it! My favorite so far is Pop Thorn, he is a land puffer fish I guess, or think. He is awesome because when he is deflated he shoots rapid fire blasts of air. When hes inflated, he can do a body slam, or shoot homing needles out of his skin. It is so awesome. 

The plot of this one is that Kaos finds crystallized darkness, and he puts it into a cannon he made called the Evilizer THE EVILIZER!!!!!!!!!

which turns things eeeeeeeeeeeeevvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvviiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllll. His mother comes cause he messes it up, and boy, she is big trouble.

The coolest part of the game is the ability to jumper, or maybe the ability to swap. Either one is awesome. My favorite swap combo is Nitro Magna Shake. Thats Rattle Shakes bottom half, and Nitro Magna Charges top half. He is cool cuz he can shoot bouncing boes from Rattle Shake and Shoot awesome laser blasts from Nitro Magna Charge.

The one guy im really excited for is Trap Shadow. He is so awesomely amazing. He is the coolest guy ever!!!! he can turn invisible and sneaks around, and kick darkness and black holes, and lay traps, and scratch with awesome puma/leopard claws. He is crazy.

SO AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!

All the Swap Force is out now and I waited since summer for it and I have it.

You need to get it now for your kids if you want to give it to them for their Christmas or birthday because the pieces go fast. You can buy it and just hide it. I would do that. Then you have it. It's a hot item so that means all the kids want it.

Bye! This is my last Skylanders post! Bye!

Auggie )oh thank you)  

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America! You're Doing Sweetest Day All Wrong!

Go ahead, poke fun at me, the world does.

I'm over at Purple Clover today, defending Sweetest Day. Everyone hates on Sweetest Day, calling it a fake Valentine's Day and the insecure sibling to the true sweatheart celebration in February.

So. Wrong.

Come hear the right way to celebrate Sweetest Day, the way it was meant to be, and it won't cost you a trip to any store or online floral orders.

America, get Sweetest Day right.

Enjoy your day, with the people you appreciate, in your life.

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Forget a Clean House and Home-Cooked Meals, This is the Mama I Want To Be

Found this on the internet, it's short and sweet, and made me smile with a little bit of watery eyes. Because this is what a really cool mom is... and I don't want to forget it. *loooove :51

True Things I Have Actually Sorrowfully Woefully Said

Never quick with a comeback, I'm also slow on the initial response time. Most things catch me off guard. I prefer to think of it because I'm always deep in thought, so let's leave it at that. Best explanation of all time for the following list of actual craziness that has left my lips: 

1. "What are your hours?" I asked when I called the local police department. "Ma'am, we're a police station, we never close."

2.  "If you don't wear your hoods up today in the rain you'll get wet." Shouted out to my teens, as they left to walk, in the rain.

3.  "Gloves are good for keeping your hands warm. Wear your gloves if you want to keep your hands warm." To my poor children at soccer, it's no small miracle they don't turn around and have me hauled away.

4. "Let's make sure we get up early so we're not late." Duh, mom, why don't my kids ever just say DUH MOM.

5.  "I lost that DVD I checked out last week so we'll have to replace it, huh?" Pretty much, Alexandra, when you lose a DVD from the library, pretty much they'll expect you to replace it.

6.  "You guys want to eat something good for dinner tonight or should I just make something else?" Ummm.... mom, we think we'll take the something good.

7.  "What happens if you give me the bangs you think I should have and I don't like it?" Well, then, dear middle age customer, I guess you just don't like it, because we don't offer glue back on hair services.

8.  "This dress makes me look like I had a bunch of kids and then I never exercised again." Um, maybe because you had a bunch of kids and then never exercised again? Actually, no words back from 20something cute salesgirl, just blinking eyes, because.

9.  "Do you have any running shoes that will make me run longer and not feel like I hate running so much?" Nope, nope, nope we don't. And if our store did have anything like that, we'd be the richest people in the world.

10.  "Kids, come over here and help me, I'm trying to take a picture of myself but all the ones I keep taking make me look I don't know what the heck is going on." Mom, that's because you keep taking a picture, and you don't know what's going on.

11.  "Thank you for being camp counselours at Boys State. My son had a wonderful time. Your mothers must be so proud that at your age, you give of your time like this." Said in front of my mortified 18 year old son, who leaned in and hissed, "MOM! One of them is a practicing criminal defense attorney and the other one's a West Point graduate and an Army Engineering Officer!" But they look sooo young....

12. "I'm going to put some socks on, because my feet are cold. Then maybe a sweater." Said while standing in front of the dishwasher because evidently now, I feel the need to announce everything to the world.  


Not just me, right? Dear G-d, not just me. Please leave me your so-genius-only-I-know-it comment. You have one, right? *Please, right*

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Leap of Faith

Have you ever done something, that is so out of character for you, but you do it anyway, heart thumping and knees knocking, because it's your dream?

I have, and I tell my story, on Purple Clover today.

Have a great weekend, everyone. I appreciate you coming here, so much.

Better Than Counting Sheep

At night, I lie in bed. I used to sleep in bed, but since my mother passed away, sleep no longer comes easily.

I remember so much about my life with my mother. Memories and scenes play over in my mind, she was always just there, and the last days we had with her, leave me feeling like we did so little with her. We could have done more, I mouth to myself, my face buried in the pillow. I had a list of all I wanted to do with her before the weather shifted. The note is still up near the kitchen desk, grandparent's day at the zoo, rent a beach wheelchair and let the kids push her along Lake Michigan, a spree to Goodwill.

Hours pass in the dark, I don't look at the clock because I don't want to see how few hours there are left before the kids come in to tell me it's time for school.

Sleep doesn't come at the snap of a finger, the way it used to. I would joke that I could win the Olympics of Sleep because I'd be stone cold knocked out halfway down before my head even hit the pillow. But not anymore.

Counting sheep doesn't work, I've tried. I adjust and re-adjust, and turn to the right and then try the left, I kick off the covers and stare at the dark ceiling. I close my eyes, and tell myself, just try and sleep. Just try.  

Instead of sleep, my hearing just grows more acute. Sounds of the house settling, an owl in the tree in front of our neighbor's house, coyotes in the field near the back, a motorcycle going much too fast down the main road of our town. I hope he gets home safe, I mumble about the motorcycle rider, and that his mother isn't up waiting for him.

I turn onto my stomach, sometimes the cool sheets against my face help to bring sleep on. I think about how we are all home, all safe. How there is blissfully nothing for me to anguish or wring my hands over. I think about the good health we have and how there is always money for groceries. I  smile thinking of how I am the mother of three children who make me laugh every day. I feel grateful for how I am able to be home when my kids need me to be and for how they're thrilled when it's spaghetti and meatball night, even though it's spaghetti and meatball night more days of the week than I care for.

I think of my sturdy car, so good in the winter, and I think of the weekend ahead, busy, driving a carful of children to activities they all love doing.  My plans to work on the closets and check for things we've outgrown is going to feel productive and help me with the stifled, cluttered feeling I've had lately. My husband and I are going to have breakfast together early Sunday morning and leave the boys at home. Food always tastes better when someone else makes it.

I have no worries, I have my children within five feet of me, our house is warm and large enough, and this weekend, my middle son asked to see a movie with me and my oldest asked to go shopping, together. I have so much to think about, the thoughts of all of the good that I have all push to the front of the line, to be heard, seen, acknowledged. Yes, yes, I see you, all of you, I  keep thinking, I have so much.

I hear a soft knock on the door, then a push, my middle boy peeks in, wearing one of his new flannel shirts, one we just picked up before school started. "Mom? Mom? You need to get up -- you're still snoring, and you're usually up by now..."

I had fallen asleep, not remembering when, but remembering how, with thoughts of all the good that I have in my life. So much good, that it did what no amount of sheep in the world could do.

It carried me away, to sweet, gentle sleep.

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There's a Spine In There, You Know

photo credit: Larry He's So Fine via photopin cc 

 In 1996, I became the manager of a physical comedy team, something akin to the new millenium Three Stooges. I married late in life, and my husband and I had no time to waste with regard to go forth and multiply, so, we got busy. Enter Larry, Curly, and Moe, all born within six years of each other.

I live with The Three Stooges and by 8 AM every morning, the comedy shorts begin. My house is filled with slaps, pokes, bonks, and nose twists. When Curly, Larry, and Moe get bored, their legs and hands wander, to each other’s backs, shins, and heads.

“Nyuk nyuk nyuk *conk*.”

“Woo woo woo *slam*.”

“Ohhhh… a wise guy, eh? *bop*.”

When this physicality began, oh, at about the time the then 23 month old made the then 3 month old into a portable lawn mower, I knew I had to set up 

 RASSLIN' HOUSE RULES:

Rule #1. No tears of pain.
 

Rule #2. No cries from injuries.
 

Rule #3. If it’s not fun, please stop.

A printed out version of rule numbers 1, 2 and 3 above, is taped next to our sofa in the living room. After 18 years of managing this team, we haven’t had to add any new rules to this rough housing list. My children know I mean it when I say safety first, and I’ve adjusted accordingly. I have grown deaf to the sounds of furniture legs breaking or vases toppling over, I am blind to hands slapping rapid fire across each other's foreheads, and I don’t trip but instead radarlike step over the boys while they roll over each other like they’re putting out a fire. I go about my day like this is the most natural thing, because, basically, I know no different.

It’s my life, and I love it. I’ve changed who I am to include a voice that I can quickly summon to become a knock it out of the ballpark bellow, “GUYS! BOYS! Food stays ON the table!” Voila, grapes go back in the bowl, like that.


As my boys have gotten older, the level of leg wrestling and body slamming has volumized in intensity to ForceLevel Ten. They've bulked up, there's testosterone flying around in gallon size jugs within their bodies. My ears have been calibrated to Code Orange Alert Level and are set to dog ear quality sensitive range for the sound of crackling bones and dislocated ball-n-socket joints. It’s all in a day’s work of keeping the kids alive and our insurance deductible down.

Like I said, this is my normal. I do my household duties and keep one eye on the five full boxes of pasta boiling on the stove, and the other on the WWF tournament going on in the front room. I don’t want to fight my children’s battles for them, who wants to be that mother, so I become part of the wallpaper. It’s a beautiful co-existence, but one rainy day — the kind of day where the boredom in the air is as thick as apple butter, I knew it was time to step in.

First, I heard an “ungh,” then a “flop,” like a fish jumping out of water. This was soon followed by my peripheral vision catching the sight of legs whizzing past in a direction that has only been achieved in the human kingdom phylum by sheer accident. Or breeding with aliens.

Dropping the laundry basket I held on my hip, I lorded over Curly and Moe, who both were holding Larry as if he were a wishbone. My Larry, my baby.

“HEY!” I foghorned.


Startled, the boys looked up, because Mom was bellowing and she doesn’t bellow often.

“HEY!” I shout a second time, they freeze.

And then I say something I’d never imagine saying, even as the house manager of The Three Stooges:

"Your brother is not a wallet!"

If you look up over the sofa, you'll see that our Rasslin' House Rules have now been updated to include rule number 4:

#4. No folding people like wallets. They don’t go that way.

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The Moth in Oklahoma City

This past Thursday, October 3, the world-famous TheMoth live storytelling series, brought their MainStage in the Midwest Show to Oklahoma City. I was honored to be invited to share the stage and live-tell my story, along with four other story tellers, who are so talented and captivating, you must follow and hear them on TheMoth. org or TheMoth youtube channel. “The Moth is an acclaimed not-for-profit organization dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling. It has presented more than three thousand stories, told live and without notes, to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. The Moth podcast is downloaded more than one million times a month, and Peabody Award-winning The Moth Radio Hour is in its seventh season."

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I fell in love with story telling through my Spanish grandmother. I'd sit on the floor in front of my Abuela/my grandmother when I was four years old, she'd curl my dark hair around her fingers in the shape of ringlets, "cochumbos," and she would tell me story after story. Hours of tales of being a little girl in South America, her childhood, her family, the people of her small village. Stories of saints and miracles and being six years old and having to outrun the bull on her father’s ranch that got loose and chased her, and how she barely survived – only finding safety by clambering up a nearby tree.

She was the queen of the short story, and I was her rapt audience. Each story a fresh one, and her words made them all come to life. When she spoke, I’d see her run, her thick long braids trailing behind her. When she jumped for that tree branch to escape the bull, I jumped with her. I’d forget to breathe as she told me how she felt the earth shaking as the bull’s hooves pounded the ground behind her. I’d squint with her as she explained how he had come up over the hill with the noon sun behind him, blinding her until he was almost at her feet.

I’d stare straight ahead, transfixed, while she pulled my hair through her comb, her stories taking me someplace else, taking me to her life. Every time, disappearing into the images she created for me.

Her stories never stopped, even as I grew older. I’d come home to visit from college and sit on the sofa next to her, and she’d begin, "When I was a little girl..." She had such a treasury stored away in her mind, each adventure told with a detailed magic that to this day, remembering them brings them back to life, as full of blue skies and green grass as when I first heard them forty years ago.

Her stories didn't come out of a book, they were from her mouth.

Parenting publications instruct us to read to our children, and I agree 100 percent with this practice, but I want my children to get lost in my life, as I did in my Abuela’s. I tell my three boys stories about my growing up, in bright descriptions. I explain about being a teen in the 70's and taking the 10 foot long coiled up telephone cord, and stretching it into the hall closet so I could have privacy with my phone calls. I tell them about the three channels, four if you counted public television, that we had and how you had to stand up and cross the room to change the station – manually clicking a too-hard-to-turn knob to a new show.

I describe hot, muggy Milwaukee summers that would make my hair spring like coils around my forehead, of how I'd go to the community pool with my two brothers, crossing the wooden slat bridge; having to hold my eyes straight up and fighting the temptation to look down between the slats or I'd imagine myself falling in the river far below. My grandmother would give us 35 cents each; a dime for the metal basket to place our clothes in and 25 cents to each buy a bag of cheese popcorn for when we’d come out of the pool, famished. One summer, we figured out that if we all shared a basket, we’d have 20 cents extra and could get two banana popsicles, split three ways.

I paint a picture for my children, so they see a skinny, brown-skinned girl with hair thicker than a broom, sitting in between two brothers on a park bench alongside the chain fence of a pool, sunburned shoulders in the days before sunscreen, fingertips orange with cheese dust.

I want my stories to play in their heads forever, exactly as my Abuela’s stories still do for me.

Because it is this vision of a little girl with the flying black braids, running as if the devil himself is chasing her and scrambling up a tree with her heart in her throat – that is the picture of my Abuela that lives in my mind forever.

I reveled in my grandmother's stories, it is with this same love of the oral tradition, that I became a supporter of the not for profit organization, TheMoth. TheMoth is dedicated to keeping alive and cultivating the art of story telling, by celebrating the story teller, the extraordinary in all our ordinary.

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Please follow TheMoth on Facebook, follow them on twitter, subscribe to their podcasts and listen to TheMoth Radio Hour on your public radio broadcast station, because we've been telling our stories since time began. TheMoth brings these stories together -- from people you'd never dream of hearing about, with stories so fiercely human, you find yourself back to feeling what it's like to sit at someone's knee, hanging on the next word in childlike wonder. Lose yourself in the magic and beauty of sharing our varied lives through laughter, tears, epiphanies, and arrived insight, all while being held spellbound -- in a story. Find out more by clicking on TheMoth through TheMoth.org . True Stories told live.

If there is a Moth StorySLAM anywhere near you, attend. StorySLAMS are open-mic storytelling competitions held weekly in New York City, three times a month in Los Angeles, twice a month in Chicago, twice a month in Michigan and monthly in Louisville, Pittsburgh, Boston, Milwaukee, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and Minneapolis/St. Paul. They are open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night’s theme. Attend, be a part of the storySLAM on stage or in the audience -- either way, you'll leave falling in love with the human race and the beauty of the collective experience with stories, amazing stories, told on stage.

"The Moth is a celebration of both the raconteur, who breathes fire into true tales of ordinary life, and the storytelling novice, who has lived through something extraordinary and yearns to share it. Moth stories dissolve socio-economic barriers, expose vulnerabilities, and quietly suggest ways to overcome challenges and see with new eyes."

*The Moth is always looking for stories, call their pitch line -- just like I did -- and tell them your story, because you're the only one that can tell it. 

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Getting Older? Here's What I Like About It

My personality type fits getting older. I always was somewhat not part of the flow, or the crowd, or whatever it is that's pegged as 'fitting in,' so this older thing is right up my alley.

What I'm saying is the older I get, the more I feel like I'm in the skin I was meant to be.

For a quick look at my Top Ten Things I Love About Getting Older, pop over to Purple Clover today. I'm sure there's a lot more out there, like me.

Thanks, internet, for bringing so many people I really like, my way.

Hope to see you here.

xo

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