Who is this chick?!

I am many things, but I am not precious.

I am a wife and mother who is always learning and evolving. I have a wonderful teenage step-daughter who came to live with us in September 2014 to go to high school in Toronto, but is now back home with her mom, in another town. I have a 4 year old spitfire daughter who is too smart for all of us, and is constantly challenging me. I have a sweet 1 year old boy who is turning out to be a total comedian, not to mention a pretty natural dancer.

I am a singer. Yup, I have two degrees in music, have trained in and performed numerous operas. My other nickname has been operagirl for a long time. I still sing, but mostly as a paid soloist and section lead in several choirs. It’s been fun to remember what it’s like to enjoy my singing again, after many years of doing it because I felt I had to. I also teach singing.

I am a jewellery designer. Yup. I have an Etsy store, and there are people in Japan and the Czech Republic and all over North America wearing my stuff. I have some jewellery for sale in my shop right now, but I’m not actively making much, because so much of my time is devoted to writing, these days.

I am a bit of an expert, when it comes to natural bodycare, and green living in general. Why? Because I worked as a beauty consultant at a big organic grocery store, to supplement my singing income, for close to 10 years. I’m the gal everyone comes to, when their kid has eczema, and I try to use as many green beauty products on our family as possible.

I am a writer. I began writing as a freelancer for a content marketing agency in 2014, and now I’m a staff writer at Romper, as well as a cadre writer for BLUNTmoms, and a blogger for The Huffington Post, and have written for Scary Mommy and Mamapedia, among others. I’m also working on my first novel! Take that. Or y’know, buy it, when it comes out.

My most popular post of all time is Today, Mommy is an Asshole which, to date, has been viewed more than 65K times. My second most popular post is 8 Things I Wish I’d Known As A First Time Mom. The post I am most proud of is Pretty, where I let my inner feminist roar, and did you know I started a social media movement called #100authenticdays? I’m pretty fucking awesome, actually.

I am a creative, complicated person with good days and bad days. I’m in therapy. I’m trying to figure out motherhood, so if you’ve heard any mom secrets I should already know about, tell me, dammit! I walked in with a bunch of preconceptions of how parenting would go, and my kids have been handing my ass to me ever since. And I love it. Because it makes me laugh.

I hope it makes you laugh, too.

~g

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