My life rocks because:

1. I have kick-butt faith in a God who is bigger than all the storms of life. My faith helps me to remember that the storm is never the end of the story and eventually I will be lead to the calm.

2. I have an incredible man in my life who is willing admit his shortcomings, pursue change, and put up with me.

3. I have wonderful family and friends who make it a point to engage me around activities I enjoy.

4. I have an ever-growing collection of films to watch on veggie days.

5. I live in a state that is warm year-round (for the most part) so I don’t ever have to shovel snow! WOOT!

I could also go on, but I like numbers that end in 5 and 0, so I will stop there to spare you 5 more. After all, it’s your blog.

Maybe there’s a way to work her into your talk as a prop? Explaining that many freelance writers don’t give themselves maternity leave, so they find a way to work around these little beings. Or maybe audience members would agree to hold her. There’s always someone in every crowd who loves babies.
.-= Alisa Bowman´s last blog ..Life is a Struggle, a Wonderful Struggle =-.

That is too awesome about your latest book. You totally rock girl. You are such an awesome writer that I suspect it’s the ghostwriting NOT the subject matter that is making that book such a success.

Here are a few ways my life is good:

1. I went to a meeting for my 10-year-old’s school and my 3-month-old sat on my lap and cooed around the room for two hours (with a little nursing and peeing on the side) without fussing at all.

2. Every time she looks at me she crinkles her eyes and gives me a huge gummy grin.

3. My 6-year-old son gives me a hug and a kiss before I leave his kindergarten every morning and says, “Goodbye Mom, I love you.”

4. I live in a town where I can bike and walk everywhere. This weekend we went to the grocery store with our big red wagon, loaded it up with mostly locally grown vegetables, fruits from California (our neighboring state) and healthy, organic food and pushed and pulled the wagon up our hugely steep hill. The sun was shining, we were outside. Life was beautiful all the way there and all the way back.

5. My aunt is coming to visit in two weeks, staying at a hotel down the street where the kids can use the pool.

6. I know these awesome amazing people in cyberspace, like you, and get to read your excellent blog that is well written, insightful, and full of kindness.

7. I’m getting paid this week to write about a 20th century female explorer and cloth diapering, two topics near to my heart and interesting to my mind.

8. I’ve been invited to give a talk about writing to a filled auditorium at a small college that is going to remunerate me quite well for my time and trouble. Getting paid to have people listen to what I have to say, blabbermouth that I am? That really rocks. (Even though I’m worried to death, already, about flying with the baby, being professional with the baby, and juggling everything with the baby…)

welcome back. I did not know how much I love and missed ur blog until you came back. I admire your honesty and appreciate how much you are willing to share with us.
I also think we tend to overlook our blessings and concentrate on the negative-I just did that this weekend- things are definitely not as bad as we think they are. And God does love you, for sure.

I was interested in the whole mentality behind “conflict is interesting, happy positive thoughts are boring.” I understand that as a journalist you are taught that conflict sells -just look at the daily headlines- but I truly feel that when you look for negativity, it becomes all that you see. Whats beautiful is that this works in reverse just as well- the more we look for positivity and acknowledge these things, the more positivity manifests in our lives.

My question is, what is it in our society that makes positivity so gosh darn boring???

I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on this and your experience with this idea. Thanks again, and great to “meet” you! ~Meg

I took a lot of wrong turns growing up. At 19 I was into hards drugs and binge drinking. I lacked ambition and confidence. I was going NO WHERE.

Somehow (I’ll spare you the details), I ended up here. I’m going to college for something that I’m really excited about: environmental engineering. As a result of being both passionate and intelligent, there are lots of doors opening for me. I’ll graduate in the spring with an impressive GPA and an acceptance letter to an outstanding graduate school.

At 29, I have learned to love my imperfections. I’m beautiful because of all the uniqueness that is me–inside and out. I’m comfortable in my own skin and with who I am.

I’m healthy! I have no physical or mental limitations.

My labrador puppy is curled up next to me on the futon while I’m writing this and it makes my heart smile.