In Case You Are New Here

I'm actually guest-posting today over at Dare to Dream. I would like to thank Whitney for inviting me onto such a great blog filled with stories of incredible women and their dreaming.

If you are visiting from Dare to Dream, then thanks so much for stopping by. As my post there is about my great writing ambition, it might be helpful if you could actually read something I've written besides that essay. I blog about all kinds of things, including plenty of emphasis on politics and religion. There is nothing like diving head first into taboo subjects to force people to comment!

Here are a collection of essays from the last 2 1/2 years that might be termed my "best stuff." These 15 posts comprise less than 5% of my total blog, but are a good representation of the kind of things you could expect. They are ordered with the oldest being on the top. I also have a finished novel posted to a blog on my sidebar link, but it is religious fiction, so consider yourself warned.

1. My very first post titled "Hug a Trucker Day" is still one of my favorite, perhaps because I finally had a blog-worthy story to tell.

2. This post is about being a new mother in a new place. Re-reading it today was the best birth control I've taken in a long time.

3. "The Wealth Gap" is definitely a political piece, as are the links. Even as I hit "publish" I knew there would be some strong opinions.

4. This is the first of several health care posts. If you are interested in my politics, there is a topics list if you scroll down far enough. I posted this in response to being called a Communist. There is nothing like some name-calling to really sort out ideas.

5. This post brings up the relationship between religion and popular culture.

6. From Father's Day a couple of years ago, this is a tribute to my dad (and my mother, really) titled "Bean Boy."

7. "Just Throw a Casserole At It" explores the way women can support one another when unthinkable things happen, and what a small random act of service might mean to someone who is struggling.

8. This piece is about the widening gap between modern 20-something men and women, and why true love seems so hard to find.

9. This details the closest I've ever been to publishing anything--a letter to the editor in a prominent, national magazine.

10. Now and then I really get my snark on. This piece, from a year ago is a hilarious review of the ACM awards.

11. "Ambition" is about the conflict that women feel between working and mothering, and how ambition can be both fostered in a mother's heart as well as passed on to her children or other young people she has opportunity to interact with.

12. This essay is an exploration of my feelings upon finding that my first really ambitious writing effort was not going to be published, at least not officially!

13. This one is called "A Mother-Heart" and is probably pretty self-explanatory.

14. This post, "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands" is a book review for the same title. Even months later I'm still getting comments from bloggers I've never even heard of.

15. And a last, controversial politics-piece to round out the list.