This is what stage fright looks like.

This is what it looks like when you have stage fright, but you do it anyway.

Even I can’t figure out why I have stage fright. It’s inexplicably bizarre. I am great in a crowd, I’m an engaging conversationalist in a group, I have something to say here every single day and I have no problem raising my hand or volunteering in a classroom setting.

What is my problem with preparing something and speaking in public?

I’m giving my first Toastmasters speech tonight. I’m blanking out and have nothing prepared, and I have butterflies in my stomach and feel like I have to pee constantly. I’m not getting enough breath.

I’m starting to think it’s the preparing that gives me the anxiety. I’m great at seat-of-my-pants, but preparing produces more anxiety.

Images: Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me

My blogging mentor and my Channel Editor at b5media, Gayla McCord, just struck it “rich” selling one of her blogs for $95,000.

Over at momgadget.com she writes a compelling story about learning how to do from reading Problogger, the book.

Problogger , Darren Rowse, featured her story on his website too - cause really is there better advertising than having the advice in it propel a blogger to fantastic success?

I’ve read Problogger, the book. And recommended it to several bloggy friends. It’s one of those books with so much valuable information in it that you take baby steps or get overwhelmed. Then go back and read it for more baby steps.

Salute to Gayla - who relied on her prayers during a tough time and then used her business savvy to not just recover from a natural disaster, but reinvented herself as an entrepreneur.

Instead of relaxing after her big sale, she launched two new businesses and hired 5 family members to work for her.

She’s some empowered woman. I’ve been marveling at how she even turns out the plethora of content she does and manages an entire team of writers and teenage children. That’s before I knew about two new businesses and negotiating a big blog deal. AWE. (No, I’m normally not a kiss up).

Read her incredible story in When You Don’t Know What To Do, Say a Prayer And Buy The Book.

Image Source: Amazon.com

Am I the only one who pretends I’m Bill Gates watching those Apple commercials? How does Bill Gates feel watching those commercials?

It makes me giggle because it’s true. It’s sooo true.

And it’s about freaking time they included some women.

OK - I just love that they called her genius instead of geek. Not that I don’t love the name, Geek Squad. I so do. I just love that they were presumptuous enough to use the word Genius.

Images Source: Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me

I’m allergic to cats and my husband says “NO” to a puppy.

So I was at this garage sale way out in the country and they were selling their hampsters.

For a mere $5 they sold me two hampsters and this cool orange and blue cage that looks like Apple designed it, plus a bag of shavings and a bag of food. I’m a bargain pet shopper. No maintenance pets. Heck yeah, you can have hampsters if it won’t cost me more than $5.

Ainsley named them Charlie and Lola.

Zack loves them and often pushes them around in the bed of his giant dump truck or in his tool box or a bucket.

I never have to remind them to feed Charlie and Lola, I will just happen upon Zack - when he’s being too quiet - and I’ll find him pouring food into their cage and 3 feet around it too.

It’s too bad they bite.

Images Source: Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me

So my friend Mrs. Blogoway tells me, at our last bookclub - slash - wine tasting, that she’s been talking to this Seattle blogger on the phone. And that she’s got a layover in Seattle coming up and she called her blogger friend, Mona from kirida.com, and they’re going to hang out.

Cool.

But, then to my husband later I’m saying, Mrs. Blogoway is talking on the phone to one of her blogger friends.

What do they talk about?

I don’t know, but don’t you think it’s a little weird that she’s talking to her on the phone like she’s a real friend? Meeting her in person is so intimate, don’t you think it will be aqward?

A few days later my phone rings.

Tracee, It’s Jessica!

And I totally know it’s Jessica Bern from BernThis, who lives in LA. I met at BlogHer and we’ve been emailing back and forth and it was so not weird that she was calling me at home to learn how to use Twitter.

Here’s the thing - my mother had to know her neighbors. She had no choice - neighbors and church was her social life. If she got stuck with sucky neighbors or judgy/bitchy church ladies it was just bad luck of the draw and she had to make due with them. Who else was she gonna be friends with?

Me - and you - we’re lucky. We can make friends with people in Seattle or LA. We make friends with them because we have things in common or we think they are funny - not just because they moved in next door.

It’s a new world. I kinda dig it.

Photo Source: Mrs. Blogaway & Mona on Seatle Layover.

Julie Pippert is featuring my essay: Empowering Girls: Hootchy Clothes and Mean Girls on Moms Speak Up, a blog collaborative. Take a trip over there and give it a Kirsty won’t you?

Thanks Julie.

I turned 35 on Saturday.

We had a California picnic at the lake.

My husband got me this fabulous Momsrising.org T-shirt.

Of course, what I want for my birthday is equal pay, family leave insurance, and gender equality. It’s not just a t-shirt. It’s political action.

He gets me.

When I was a teenager I thought I’d be stupid and boring and washed up and not care about my looks or health at 35.

Instead at 35, I find myself engaged in life, pro-active about my health, excited about my work and more willing to let go of all my hang-ups with every passing day.

Oprah has me convinced 50 is the Holy Grail for women, anyway. I’m still a babe in terms of that standard. I like that standard, it makes me feel I have all the time in the world to get everything I want to accomplish accomplished.

I feel more like Me, and more accepting of that, as time passes.

In short, I’ve never been happier and I’ve never felt better. I’m in my prime.

So, Chevy allowed my family to drive a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid across the country, from Dallas to Salt Lake City, on our way to BlogHer08. You can’t imagine my gratitude (My 1995 van broke down right before we left and we just found out it will cost $900 to fix the air conditioner.)

I was very interested in the hybrid function of this shiny status symbol SUV. Would this type of car save us money in gas?

The answer is not really. It’s an SUV that gets regular milage. Which, is an improvement only in terms of SUV gas milage.

I don’t regularly drive an SUV, I drive a mini-van, so my gas milage was the same. If you drive a small economy vehicle your gas milage would still be worse in the Tahoe.

I also came across a cost analysis on Dave Ramsey. Don’t do it unless you like losing money, is Dave’s current advice.

To get your money back at current gas prices, just going from 15 miles per gallon to 25 miles per and driving 100 miles a week, that would save you $10 a week. To get back your $15,000, it would take you almost 29 years!

My husband surprised me on the way home saying, it sure was nice to have the nicest vehicle in the parking lot instead of the worst.

Really? I hadn’t spent one second thinking about it.

However, when I first started driving it I felt an urge to go around my neighborhood explaining that it was just a loaner. Which points to my own money issues.

The bottom line, it doesn’t suck to drive a Chevy Hybrid Tahoe across the country. But, it’s really a status symbol that won’t save you money and costs $52,000.

This isn’t a very practical choice, economically or ecologically, for the middle class. Yet.

That said, can anyone remember what an iPhone cost last year? It was around $450. This year, people stood in line to pay $200 for one that was twice as fast. (I’m hoping the iPhone is in my economic stratosphere next year).

That’s how new technology works. It becomes more affordable to the middle class masses pretty quickly.

Chevy, and other car companies, will eventually lower the price of vehicles with Hybrid technology and make them even more efficient over the next few years.

If you are buying a new car Chevy makes 8 models that get 30 mpg or more (just not the Tahoe Hybrid).

They are also investing a great deal of money and talent into the Concept Chevy Volt, an electric car which plugs into a common household plug and uses no gasoline and produces no emissions for 40 miles per day.

Chevy has over 2 million E85 FlexFuel vehicles on the road today. These are vehicles that can run on ethanol or gasoline.

They are also road-testing thier Equinox Fuel Cell vehicle, a vehicle that produces zero emissions and uses zero gasoline, right now. Green Car Journal has given the Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell its Green Car Vision Award.

How cool is that?

Thanks again for your generosity Chevy! And thanks for taking gas prices seriously enough to invest in new eco-friendly, budget-friendly technology.

If you need someone to test drive your hydrogen-powered Equinox Fuel Cell SUV in the southern humidity, you’ve got my number.

Image Sources: Tahoe Hybrid, Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me; Volt by Chase Agnello-Dean, Cars.com; Equinox, Hydrogencarsnow.com
; E85 Suburban, roadfly.com.

I hear mothers talk about how sacrifice is “worth it” for their kids. I especially hear this if mother’s have given up something valuable - economic independence, dreams, ambitions, time, goals, careers, autonomy, hobbies, interests, etc.

When did I - as a human being - lose my inherent value? Was it when I stopped being the child so worthy of my mother’s sacrifice? Or was it when I became the mother, expected to sacrifice everything for my children, and then say, “it’s worth it?” Or was it when I turned 18 and stopped being a legal child?

I’m just curious how one human being has elevated value over another - children over mothers specifically - but then somehow they grow out of it?