There are two things that you should know about me. One, I have an incredible sweet tooth. It’s detrimental to my health and hips but I struggle through and have learned to appreciate my curves. My dentist isn’t so happy. Two, I have a sensitive nose and can smell really well. That second one didn’t come in handy last night.

It’s rare for me to lock my bedroom door but it closed just right when I went to bed so it locked easily. That’s why my son had to call me on my cell phone while he was standing outside my bedroom door.

“Mom. It’s Mason. Can you hurry up and unlock the door?”

The clock read 3:15 and I assumed he meant the front door and that he’d lost his key and was just getting home. He was standing outside my door when I opened it and I still didn’t have my glasses on yet. He is a formidable figure standing tall and broad-shouldered. It’s a good thing I wasn’t groggy or I would have thought a stranger entered my house and then my body would have triggered quickly into karate / self-defense mode and I would have kicked that poor kid’s butt.

“There’s a really bad, scary smell coming from downstairs. It smells like we’re having a fire.”

I ran back to my bedside table to feel around for my glasses and hurried downstairs with him. Immediately, I opened up the dishwasher from last night’s load to see if something plastic had gotten stuck and started melting. But no bad smells were coming from there so we ventured into the basement and were hit with a worse smell. I wondered aloud, “What do electrical fires smell like? This is HORRIBLE.”

When we opened the furnace door we were hit with smoke and realized we were in trouble. No fire yet, but the smoke was overpowering. He grabbed a tissue and some rubber bands and made the most hilarious looking mask for his face. I wish I were more lucid to have taken a picture, but honestly I was just scared. My mother was upstairs in her room asleep. How long would it take to get her to remove her breathing machine and wobble down the stairs when she is as sick as she is? My other son was sound asleep. My nephew, who is 10, was asleep as well.

Finally, we decided to call the fire department and when I asked, “What’s the number to non-emergency? It’s not like this is a full blown fire.” Mason looked at me like I was crazy.

“Uh. Mom. I think you just call 911.” He started laughing at me not realizing that there ARE non-emergency fire and police numbers. When we got ahold of them we begged them not to wake our neighbors at this hour and please come with no lights or sirens. They did. And they were fast. (Well done, SFD! I’m proud of ya!)

Two trucks came and so did the newspaper carrier. It was a ridiculous sight this morning. It was barely 3:30 when Mason shared with me that he had gotten up to eat some pie.

My genes are strong. He has the sweet tooth mark upon him. When he returned to the kitchen around 3 to check and see if he left the pie out he smelled it. But he said it was also the dog, Lola, who scratched at the door to make him think he had to let her out of his bedroom for some reason. She is not the middle-of-the-night-peeing-dog thankfully. The pie he desperately wanted to eat was a lemon icebox pie that I made  a few weeks ago for the first time. In fact, I mentioned it on Twitter and some friends decided that they were going to crash my house to try it out. Sidenote: stop mentioning how great a cook I am on social networking. KIDDING, ALEX AND DESHANEE. I love y’all. After pie they even dragged me to a movie so it turned out to be a fun night.

Mason had gotten the pie out of the refrigerator to cut himself a piece. When he woke up later he wondered if he had forgotten to return it to keep it cold. That’s when he and Lola went exploring downstairs to see what the smell was.

So. The firefighters came and called another truck (with a ladder! yay! this is a real adventure!) to bring a powerful fan in to blow into the basement to help relieve us of the smell. I even knew one of them as he was walking through my front door. “Hey, Kelly. How are you?” Sweet guy. “I’d rather not be up right now, but there’s no fire and just smoke damage so actually I’m doing very good.”

My nose failed me last night because I didn’t smell a thing and the smoke alarm would have gone off sooner to alert me, but Mason was already awake. I keep thinking how that kid has been with me during some potentially tragic situations. The last time it was when we had an earthquake two summers ago and he actually wasn’t supposed to be at my house that night, but he stopped by anyway because he was with friends who lived close to me and he didn’t want to make them take him to his dad’s house.

My sweet tooth and the powerful DNA that I passed along to my son is what saved us.

You want the recipe, don’t you? Here it is, because it might save your life, too:

Mix 2 cans of sweetened condensed milk

6 egg yolks

1 cup of fresh lemon juice.

Pour into a graham cracker pie crust, back at 350 degrees for 15 minutes and then chill for 6 hours in the refrigerator. It’s the perfect summer pie because you only use your oven for a short time. It’s important when it’s this hot out.

I love my children and my family and want to keep them safe. We are waiting for the A/C guy to come out to the house and fix the motor that blew so that we can have air conditioning today. The weather report is already calling for it to be unbearable and I’d hate to have to move everyone, especially my mother. And yes, by 4:00 am this morning I grabbed a cup of coffee and a piece of that lemony life-saving pie. It was the only thing I could do lest I collapse in a weeping heap on the floor. I know it’s expensive to fix this and then on top of that to get emergency smoke damage cleanup companies to come out to clear out the smells. I’ve already installed every single Glade plug-in room freshener that I had and even had pancakes just now to see if cooking those in the kitchen would help the smell. It hasn’t made a dent. Everything still has a distinctly fire-y smell that is plastic-y and burn-y and I am anything but happ-y.

Next time, I’m making pecan pie. We’ll see if that wards off bears and zombies or the occasional tornado.

Not long ago, but in a land far far away, I got a wild hair to reach outside my comfort zone. Since I already like change and new challenges, I decided to apply for a freelance writing gig. Since I’m already starting work at a new school (a middle school! where the kids are middle schoolers! they are soooo my brand of crazy!) I figured I would go in with a new perspective and write daily about my experiences. That lead to feeling comfortable about my writing, warts and all. Disclaimer: I don’t have an editor for my blog which is why you’ll see typos, but hardly ever will you see something misspelled. You’ll, probably, also, see, too, many, commas. When I’m not sure about the issue with commas I think back to advice given to me when I did my student teaching. The principal of the high school called all the student-teachers together and said, “Remember this: commas are like sex education. When in doubt, keep it out.” Ever since he said that I’ve always wanted to use that line in teaching about grammar, but it never seemed appropriate.

It’s a long story how I even found out about it, but suffice to say that a writing job came open for Teaching Tolerance. I’ve gotten their periodicals for a while and have always been pleased with them. Teaching Tolerance is a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center which was founded by two civil rights lawyers in 1971. After some back and forth with the editor, I got offered the job and will be writing for them on a regular basis. If you don’t see me posting here, I’ll likely be over at  Teaching Tolerance writing about inclusive classrooms, nurturing diversity, and, as always, I will be on the hunt for justice and equality. As usual, I will write from my own experiences, but if you have anything you’d like to see in print (IN PRINT, OMG) (I really hope my new editor isn’t upset about my use of OMG) feel free to pass it along to me for consideration.

Typical of me to make huge changes in my life like this, isn’t it? But it feels so very good to be doing something I love coupled with a topic that is such a core belief for me that it cannot be separated from my pedagogy. Wish me luck!

Since I have some time to kill before rushing out the door to work I am comfortably seated at my kitchen table with my coffee, morning vitamins, and my laptop. Of course, my brain is already whooshing around in my head, but I promised to answer more of the questions so this isn’t so much an exercise in writing as it is wondering if I can get my brain to stop rattling around in my head and come up with some decent answers. Actually, I’m grateful for all those questions because the last thing I want to do is write obsessively about leaving for New York this weekend and attend that one conference that I shall not name. But I’ll probably mention it sometime in the near future. OH! And I’m only going to mention that today I get to go to my local Gap store and try on clothes with a stylist and let them outfit me so I can wear new clothes to the conference which has no name.

By way of explanation, I should say that since time appears to limit my activities in blogging I am totally taking the easy way out by answering more questions. But, I will offer you this. Two things, actually. First, the wonderful Danielle of Knotty Yarn who I got to finally meet last year in Chicago at a nameless conference wrote the most succinct, well-reasoned piece of writing on feminism that I have probably ever read. I urge you to read it if you haven’t already. She not only lists factually based arguments in her case as a feminist, she wrote this line here that completely summed up my thoughts on that stupid article last weekend by MoDo.

I am a feminist because Maureen Dowd feels such an innate sense of entitlement that she can tell black people how to be black. In 2010. In public. Out loud.

If I said HELL, YES once while reading it, I said it a hundred more times.

And then there’s this.

Yummy. I love to eat Black babies. NOM NOM NOM. They are so delicious and nutritious and ooof! I’m suddenly and mysteriously ill and can’t make it to a Tea Party convention in St. Louis this weekend. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY INTESTINAL TRACK?

My sister, Tracy, came to visit last weekend with my other sister, Erin, and she showed me this picture (which I have somehow missed as a regular Gawker reader!) of Michele Bachmann, Minister of Crazy aka Sarah Palin, Jr. I love how Gawker uses this photo whenever they mention her without really explaining why they’re using it again. But I suppose they don’t have to. Captions wouldn’t do it justice.

Onto the questions! No baby eating in this section!

Miss-Britt asked this question:

Question: You have the house to yourself for the weekend. No one is going to be sharing your bed at night or possibly waking you up in the morning.

What do you wear to bed?

Answer: Well, aren’t we risque this early in the morning, Britt? Sheesh. I suppose, since no one will see me, I will wear a scuba mask and some goggles paired with an army jacket and some stilettos. That way I wouldn’t have to explain it to anyone. Hopefully, I’ll take a bottle of wine to bed with me, too, because then I could have a wee sip in the morning when I wake.

Scout, who openly complained to me that she was mad her question wasn’t chosen (see, now sometimes whining gets you places) asked this:

Question: Do you think that kissing ass is important in the game of life?

Answer: Man, do I want to answer with a smart aleck reply to this! But I won’t. So I will say this – No way will I do this. No. Not at all. There is no rewarding factor that comes from it and I have gotten this far without trying to slobber my lips all over someone else’s patootie. Stand up for what you believe and take whatever consequences come with it. That’s not to say I don’t feel like I haven’t had to work harder than my male counterparts (see Feminism post above) just to be on an even playing field, but I’m also working in a female-dominated profession even those women are more likely to be teachers and not principals or professors and writers-in-residence for educational associations and such. Here’s a little story for you: when I worked at a private school many years ago I had to take a 6-week medical leave for surgery (softball-sized tumor in my ovary) and when I returned I had all my novels ordered for me for the following school year. I guess they had trouble with some of the titles I had chosen previously, but they let me have total control over this. I mean, as the Reading teacher, I was the expert, right? They didn’t want me using J.R.R. Tolkein (what?) and weren’t sure of The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 or The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman or even Avi’s book Nothing But the Truth. Uh. Ok, well, when I returned and confronted the leader (who, by the way, was not a person who should have the title of “principal” if you don’t have the proper credentials – Type 75, anyone? No. But still. This was the person in charge.) we got into a heated discussion of politics and book banning and censorship. So, I quit. I refused to kiss anything in order to keep that job. This worked out nicely for me because then I went back to school AND GOT MY TYPE 75 properly. And now I’m here. So, no booty smooching for me.

Meg Evans, one of the world’s most renowned knitters had this to say:

Question: Open presents Christmas Eve or Christmas morning?

Answer: Did you watch Mad Men this week, Meg? It was all Christmasy and depressing last week. I thought that’s why you asked about Christmas except you asked the question before it aired. Our family growing up got to open one present on Christmas Eve after midnight mass and then the rest of them Christmas morning. To incorporate that into my adult life as a parent, all the kids get pajamas for Christmas Eve so when I take pictures in the morning they are wearing something new. They never caught onto this as kids as I would say, “Open this one. I think THIS one would be a good present to open for Christmas Eve.” Silly kids. Tricks are for rabbits. (Wait. How did I bring up Easter just now?)

Suniverse stumped me. For days I’ve been wondering which of my senses I would choose to live without. She asked:

Question:  If you had to live without a sense, which would it be?

Also, if you had to eat either someone else’s booger or a cockroach, which would it be?

Answer: I like music, so I have to keep my hearing. I love food, so taste is also out. Touch is rather nice, so not that. Too many pretty things to look at, so I would like to keep my vision. I don’t know! This is hard. I guess if I had to live without one maybe I could deal with taste because then I could stop eating so much. This would work out for eating the booger, by the way, because if I had to do it, that’s what I would choose. As a kid I ate them anyway. Just that once, though. On a dare. Wow, both a difficult and disgusting question.

Marie, who has the most precious ducks on her blog today wondered:

Question: What are you more afraid of than anything?

Answer: I think what scares me is not getting enough time in life to do things. Mortality isn’t my favorite topic in the morning hours, but that has to be it. What if I don’t live long enough to see my children be successful at things or enjoy my grandchildren? SOMEDAY NOT NOW I AM NOT READY I DON’T CARE THAT I HAVE FOUR KIDS OLD ENOUGH TO PROCREATE. Those are the fears that keep me awake at times. And not seeing justice done for whatever reason. I have my own thoughts about that for me personally, but it doesn’t have to do with dying too soon, it’s just that I always hope I can experience justice and fairness.

I feel like this is one of those posts, after re-reading it just now, that will probably have the best comments ever. Have at it.

By far, the most difficult part about letting you come up with questions for me to answer is the sheer number of them. Too many great ones will be left off this post since I said I would only choose 10 to go into the contest drawing for a mystery box full of goodies. But here’s the good news (for me): since I’m back to work these days and posting become sparse this time of year I’ll try to post more often by using the rest of the questions. Lazy Bloggers Unite!

Mir asked a beautifully worded question:

Question 1: A man has invited you to his place for dinner. No, don’t bring anything, he tells you—he’s cooking everything. The whole meal is from scratch, from appetizer to dessert.

Now: What did he feed you that renders you putty in his hands?

Answer: First of all, this is a good question because of the fantasy nature of it. Secondly, he feeds me savory foods with a spicy flair. Something that makes me roll my eyes back in my head because it’s so tasty. For starters, he makes a guacamole that has thick chunks of avocado and plenty of cilantro. This is followed by a blackened chicken atop a cajun alfredo sauce with noodles, a salad with a homemade dressing, and he finishes it off with something dripping with chocolate ganache. Possibly tiny vanilla cupcakes that he can feed me. Literally.

Karen P asked:

Question 2: My daughter taught German in a middle school in Milwaukee. The district had a rule that a child could not receive a zero. They could refuse to do any work and would still not receive a zero. 60% was the lowest grade that could be given. What do you think of that kind of policy?

Answer: I would really like to know their rationale for coming up with this and why they felt it necessary to accept way below the mediocrity line. If I show up to work and do nothing I sincerely doubt my employer would be willing to give me ANY MONEY, much less 60% of my salary. This isn’t reflective of anything I can think of in real life so teaching children this way is disturbing. If students can sit in a classroom all year long and receive partial credit for doing nothing, then our future is dim. Make it interesting enough of a lesson that children want to do it. Someone once said, “Learning can only happen when a child is interested. If he’s not interested it’s like throwing marshmallows at his head and calling it eating.” Let’s not call zero work learning and assign it a grade. Let’s back up and figure out how better to engage students in the learning process.

Trisha’s question made me dissect parts of me that have long been dormant, but this one was a very good exercise. She said this:

Question 3: I’m a Harry Potter NUT. In the book, there’s this mirror that shows you having everything you’ve ever wanted. Harry, of course, saw himself standing next to his parents. If you were to look in the mirror, what would you see? You surrounded by family? You holding a martini while wearing your zombie shoes? I wanna know!

Answer: It was probably because she added that I wanna know exclamation point that made me furiously try to come up with an answer. When I think back to what Harry desired it was something that he didn’t have and wanted to experience. Following that logic, I would have to want something I’ve never experienced but wanted. That would be a chance to travel the world. All these places elude me, interest me, and excite me so desiring a long stay in a place like Belize or Fiji or Greece is where I would see myself in the Mirror of Erised. I might be carrying a pocketful of real gold Galleons and drinking a butterbeer, but I’d be doing it while wearing a sarong and exploring exotic lands with my loved ones.

Yolanda from Callipygian Chronicle asked this seemingly simple yet extremely complex question:

Question 4: Are you holding on or letting go?

Answer: Last week when Yolanda asked that question I wondered about which part of my life to which she was referring. I can only estimate that she meant it in terms of not only marriage and love and relationships and personal goals but everything. For the better part of five years I have come to understand that since all growth is forward and my life will get away from me if I let it, I have been letting go of things. There have been toxic relationships that I have purposefully severed because when people don’t expect the best from me as much I expect it, I have to let go. When I’m unable to reconcile personal beliefs and ideologies, I have to let go and take whatever consequences come with it. When my own doctrine of grabbing life by the junk is diametrically opposed to the person I struggle to be, I let go and take the necessary steps to exist in a compatible harmony with my own self. The greatest lesson I’ve learned over the last few years is that I can’t make adults behave. Their free will supersedes my need for them to behave better and not be stupid, selfish jerks. Most of the time I am the stupid, selfish jerk anyway. I am most assuredly letting go.

Lu from Art-Slam asked me one of those questions that is answered differently depending on the season of your life. She asked:

Question 5: Do you believe in true love?

Answer: In this season of my life I have choices that can make or break my daily life. I believe we get to choose who we love. Haven’t I done that with my friends? Of course I have. Some of them are easy to love and some a little more difficult, but the warts and all philosophy has to fit in there somewhere. Love is true when you both want it and accept it for what it is. In accordance with my own reality, I believe in true love and search for it on a regular basis. Otherwise, I am but a resounding warning bell gonging incessantly reminding myself that this isn’t it! and then I keep on searching. True love isn’t always dreamy and pretty and the more I am accepting of my own warts the easier it becomes to accept another person’s imperfections. True love can be shrouded in pink, sparkly bows with dancing unicorns but unless I try to practice it unconditionally, I’ll never find it.

Irma’s question made me dig back into the recesses of my brain and come up with … well … recess. My thoughts turned immediately to my junior high years.

Question 6: If you had the chance to go back in time and choose a different career, which would you have picked?

Answer: In junior high we were constantly asked what we wanted to do in life. Being a teacher never jumped out at me so whenever I answered one of those surveys it came back that I should be a nurse (why not a world class surgeon? I wonder). Caring for people and wanting the best for them come in handy as a trait as an educator, too, so I guess I answered honestly. But if I were to have my dream career it would really be to have been a dancer. Why else do I cry every year at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade when the Rockettes perform? It’s because I REALLY WANTED TO MAKE MONEY DOING A KICK LINE ON STAGE. I hope you don’t think I’m joking, either. My dreams back then were to dance and I haven’t lost my appreciation (or greenish jealousy) for that craft.

Grace was the first respondent and no matter how long this thing has gone on I can’t keep from coming back to it:

Question 7: Do you wear your hooker shoes during the day?

Answer: Hooker shoes are to be worn when I am vaccuuming the house or going out for a respectable cup of coffee with a friend. This is a must. But never ever out at night when they are too predictable. (Side note: I told my friend Susan from Friday Playdate last week that I will occasionally put on my last prom dress and prance around the house. Again. Nothing I would actually wear out of the house, but the fantasy of being a flapper girl dancer is strong in me. Oh, yeah. My last prom dress in high school was a white flapper dress. Best fantasy of all? IT STILL FITS.)

Deb Roby posed this question which was, without a doubt, the easiest question of all for me to answer:

Question 8: Martinis: dirty or not?

Answer: Dirty, dirty, dirty. In fact, when I’m ordering a dirty martini (extra cold, vodka, no gin and plenty of blue cheese filled olives, thank you very much) I usually say, “Just how dirty can you make a martini? Like, really super nasty dirty? Because that’s the dirty martini for me. Really. Tell the bartender to make it a super stanky dirty martini.”

JoPo, whose email address made me wonder just how people find me (are you a medical student? intern? professor?), asked me this question:

Question 9: Why do you remember your favorite teacher?

Answer: I can actually name my favorite teacher in high school and it’s Mrs. Reisig. I was in her sophomore English class and when we read The Crucible I recall that she always valued my opinion and when I offered it she was respectful and caring. Her own passion for what she was doing made me want to teach like that later in life when I became a high school English teacher. If I was excited about it, wouldn’t students also be excited? I also remember that she welcomed students in her home (with her husband, Mr. Reisig, a fellow English teacher in the same school) and always looked me in the eye when she was talking to me. She knew, as did everyone else at school, that I already had a baby by the time I got to her class and she never once brought it up or let me use it as an excuse not to get my homework done. The reason she is memorable is because he held high expectations for me when others didn’t. Due to her urging me to run for class officer I won the seat as a senior and was the vice-president of Student Government. The adult sponsor was Mr. Reisig.

RD is, I think, a new reader. I usually remember all the names and emails of commenters and this one seemed unfamiliar to me. She asked this next one.

Question 10: How exactly do you begin to write a book about your life and experiences (and believe that anyone would be interested in it)? I guess this is both a technical question and a courage question – I would love to do this someday myself, but don’t even have a blog!

Answer: Notice that I saved this one for last? I suppose, RD, that there is a great amount of ego and self confidence that goes into this one. I think I have good stories from my life and I think I tell good honest stories. (So much better in person, because I can act them out and really get into it!) It isn’t that I’ve had far different experiences or rare ones that no one else has had, either. It comes down to how I’ve responded to them and how I try to critically look at them from a standpoint of someone who learns and matures through the adventures. This is why I even started a blog 6 years ago. Do you need a blog to begin writing a book? No way. But the practice of the writing craft gets to flex its muscles and you get constant feedback on your writing. What I’ve learned, then, is that the telling of them through blogging and personal journaling forces me as a writer to get to the heart of the story and what it is I want to impart to readers. Some days I think, that was a total bust! and others I may write something seemingly benign to me (because, perhaps, I have told the story in person so many times that the initial interest factor is now lost on me) and get a lot of wow! you should write a book on stuff like this. Either way, you have to write write write. Many things I write will never see the light of day under the nose of a book editor, but it’s for me and I have to be okay with that.

Now let’s get down to brass tacks. The winner, based on the random generator is: number 5! Congratulations Lu from Art-Slam! You need to contact me with your shipping address and I will have the goods delivered to you soon. Soonish. REALLY SOONISH. In the meantime, which of the above questions would you be able to answer in the comment section? I think it’d be fun to see which one you come up with and give some feedback. Really, it’s free. Won’t cost you a thing. You can practice your writing and reflect on some excellent questions posed by some amazing people.

My personal style is changing. In fact, it is ever changing and I love that about myself. As I hurl towards my 40s (next year, people! Don’t get too excited to wish me a happy birthday just yet!) I am finding myself giddy about becoming a new person. A better person. Oh, hell. A phenomenal person. I am becoming the person I want people to talk about someday after I’m gone. Morphing into something different and some new style is actually fun. It happens every time I change my hair from naturally curly to straight or vice versa. I get to become a different person. Without a doubt, I am more fun with my curly hair. Straight seems to imply seriousness and I gotta say: the older I get the less serious I want to be about things. There is plenty of time in life to be saddled down with weighty and momentous trappings.

I’m ready to cut ties and let loose. Both in life and in my wardrobe. I think that maybe I am a cowgirl at heart.

Currently, I am obsessed with all things Junk Gypsy. I wrote about them not long ago when I got a care package from one of the owners, Jolie, who is a reader of this here blog. She is of the super cute and fun variety. We hit it on in rapid fire emails to one another and I’m pretty sure we are now cousins. The kind who show up at the family reunion and who sneak off to steal beers from Uncle Wally’s cooler, shake them up, and put them back in there to wait for it to explode all over him. Those kind of cousins.

Jolie is on the right and her mom and sister are next to her. If they get any more cute I’m going to have to hurt a baby horse.

Anyway. I love Jolie and her wares. I love them so much that I’m not going to do anything but show some of my favorite things from her little shop down in East Texas and hope that you take a visit. When I said I was doing this she actually agreed to give my readers a special offer so we’re partnering up to offer something special.

Check out a few of my favorite items:

The PoNchO ViLLA. This entire outift screams I AM MY OWN PERSON AND I AM FRINGY AND HAWT.

This is the EL CHeAPo ConCHo cuff which comes in turquoise, lapis, red coral and orange coral. I think you’ll need them all.

I simply adore the moonlight pendant. It has got to be one of the more versatile pieces from Junk Gypsy.

One of their many t-shirts outfitted with layered necklaces. A great, easy way to classy up a t-shirt.

Their TiE-DYE off the shoulder hippie ChiCK blouse. Innocently sexy. Purposefully sassy.

Lordy be, but I am all about the WANDERLUST these days.

Baby guitars. For when you’re feelin’ a little wild.

Here’s the special offer from Jolie and family over at Junk Gypsy. If you’re ordering something online you can add ‘MOCHA’ to your order and get free shipping. But wait just a second, little darlins. There’s more…

Coming soon I will be doing a giveaway of some Junk Gypsy goods that Jolie is sending to me. She has graciously agreed to outfit me for the BlogHer Conference in New York next weekend. If you happen to see me there, say “Howdy!” because I’m pretty sure I’m going to look like a seriously hipster cowgirl. While I love to get things, I also love to giveaway. So I’m taking some of those goodies she’s shipped to me and giving them away in a contest to be done the following week of BlogHer. I’m giving it away and not keeping it. GIVING IT AWAY will become my new mantra. To me, this was the best way to show off her stuff, garner new customers and lovers of Junk Gypsy, and do a good thing. In fact, I might just do Good Things Contests from now on without always seeking sponsorship. Because that’s how real cowgirls and gangstas and mommybloggers roll. Or so I hear.

The only thing I’m hanging onto, however, are a pair of Tony Lama boots because they are custom fit for my big ol’ country girl feet and you wouldn’t want them after I’ve broken them in anyway.

Yee haw.