Super Star: Alexandra from Good Day, Regular People

 

This is a really special Guest Star post. It also happens to be my 100th post!

So special, it’s been renamed Super Star (just for today).

Please say hello to one of my favorite people in the blogosphere, Alexandra from Good Day, Regular People. There are no adequate words in the English language to describe the gem of a person she is. I struggle with this introduction as I worry I won’t do her justice.

Because people? She is special.

Perhaps pointing you to some of her posts will give you an idea of how much I admire and love her as a writer and blogger.

She wrote about the things she learned from one year of blogging.

She brings the funny in this post of how she nearly didn’t become a Mrs.

I listened to her read this at the Listen To Your Mother show, ‘The Reach of a Small Moment’ and teared up.

She also writes for Tiki Tiki Blog, been syndicated on BlogHer and has been nominated for BlogHer ’11 Voice of the Year. Because she is awesome like that.

Without further ado, Alexandra, take it away!

 

1. Why did you start blogging?

I began reading blogs about five years ago. I would leave comments, and the bloggers would ask me if I had my own blog. I always answered no–that I was too scared of having a blog. I feared the publicness of it all, and I feared looking silly. I feared people judging me as thinking I was someone who thought they had something to say.

I feared negative comments.

Enough bloggers encouraged me…and so one Winter morning, on a Sunday, with my husband and children next to me, I typed my first post, and hit Publish, to the sound of my my family clapping behind me.

My encouragers became my first followers. And I follow them to this day. They are amazing, supportive women.

I blog because of the encouragement of these kind women.

2. What do you love most about blogging?

I love having the space to write, first. Then, I came to love the connection with others. I love the friendships. I love knowing people I never would have known any other way.

I love how blogging saves my mental health.

I love how, at 1:00 a.m., you always have a friend.

Blogging has made me a happier, more satisfied, more appreciative person.

I love blogging. It is one of the greatest things I’ve ever done for my life.

It has gifted me with opportunities that are incredible, incredible. It has been so wonderful to become a blogger, that I could write five pages on why I love blogging, and still have more to say.

I can’t imagine my life without it. It is so a part of what I’ve become, through it. I think we all need to stop, and think, and be grateful that a platform such as blogging exists.

We take this for granted, and really, how wonderful is the ability to blog?

Pretty great, isn’t it? It saves me every day.

3. Who is your favorite blogger ever?

I have so many favorites. Why? Because each one offers something different. No one can be all things. I go here and there for a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

There are some incredibly talented, gifted, stupendous writers out there. Some that make me feel that I should pay them for the brilliance of their words. I can’t believe all this is out here for us, for free.

There are writers that leave you speechless, where you can’t even find the words to tell them, in those little square comment boxes, how much they’ve just enriched your thoughts.

Thank you, is all I can think to say sometimes. Just, Thank You.

4. Is there a post you regret publishing?

No–because I think carefully before I publish. I wait a day before I hit publish. I write my posts at night, when everyone is asleep and I can truly concentrate in the quiet, then I type and type and type. I then go to bed, read the post the next morning, change it up a bit, and check the post again in the afternoon. I go on with my day, then, in the evening, when everyone is in bed, I finish it up. So, it’s a 24 hr process, but I wait. If something doesn’t feel right, I don’t publish it.

As Ernest Hemingway said, “write like you’re drunk, and edit like you’re sober.”

I think hard before I hit publish.

Your post is a reflection of you.

Even these questions here, I began them two days ago, and have edited them three times since.

5. You have three amazing children – what do you love most about being a Mom?

Awww…. thank you.

I love being a mom. I have wanted to be a mother since I was in kindergarten. It’s true.

I have mad crushes on my children, and when they walk into a room, my heart does skip a beat.

My children are my favorite people on the planet. They are the funniest people I know, and I adore them.

Every night, since they’ve been born, I say my prayer of thanks, for how lucky I am to have them.

This is my 16th year as a mother, and I still can’t believe how I have my dream, of my three boys.

I can’t even talk about them without crying. Pathetic, I know.

Get a life, woman, right?

But, seriously– my life began with them.

6. What’s your favorite time of the day?

The quiet night…when I only hear my thoughts.

7. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

I often fantasize about a villa on a white, sandy beach with clear, clear water, somewhere tropical. A villa complete with a chef and a cleaning staff: so I can finally just be with my children and not have to stop what we’re doing to clean, or make dinner. Just us, our family, being together.

8. What could you eat every single day?

Oh, food. I LOVE FOOD. I could eat spaghetti and meatballs with a salad and garlic bread, every day.

Every meal, actually.

9. Favorite season and why.

Spring and summer. Spring is so exciting, because everything comes back to life, and the new buds on the tips of the tree branches show a promise of what’s to come. It’s so hopeful.

And summer. Summer with my children always within arm’s reach.

Fall? No, thank you. So very depressing: reminds me of everything shutting down, the end of things. And winter? Oh, my goodness: winter. I need to make a run to WalMart and load up on the St John’s Wort in the winter.

The desolateness of winter: I just think of an old woman at the end of her life.

Yeah, can you tell I’m the life of a party? Iinvite me over sometime, I’ll show ya.

10. One word to describe you.

I hope my children say, “dedicated.”

I hope my children say I was dedicated to them.

11. You are constantly writing, guest posting frequently, and always showing your support to so many of us by visiting, commenting and tweeting our posts (phew!). How do you find the time to do all that and write on your own blog?

Thank you, so much, Alison. I’m so humbled to think that I’m seen that way.

But, who said anything about finding time?

The great myth: that we have the time to do all that others have the perception that we do.

My work is done in stabs and jabs, 30 minutes here, 30 minutes there.

Never a whole process: just sitting down and grabbing the keyboard while the potatoes are boiling, while the clothes are drying, while the kids are playing a Wii game.

There’s never enough time. Ever.

I once saw a hilarious post, where a reader asked the blogger, “how do you find the time to write such awesome posts every day on your blog?” The blogger answered the question with a Wordless Wednesday post: a picture of her toilets, that were black.

Hilarious.

12. You are such an amazing writer, syndicated on BlogHer and in the running for BlogHer Voice of the Year. Do you have any advice for us wannabe writers?

Wow. You’re really nice to me. Thank you.

Edit and re-edit and write and re-write. The writing is in the re-writing.

Don’t put anything out there until you’ve read it at least 4 separate times. Then read it one more time.

If it doesn’t make you laugh out loud, then it won’t make anyone else laugh out loud.

If it doesn’t bring tears to your eyes, then it won’t bring them to someone else’s eyes, either.

Don’t publish something, just to publish something. Always have your words serve a purpose: to help, to entertain, to love, to inform, to comfort, to inspire.

No reader wants to be talked to, but every reader wants to feel they are a part of something.

Make your blog feel like a place where your readers will always be glad they stopped in. Everyone’s time is important and limited, and there are hundred and hundreds of blogs out there to visit — appreciate and value and be grateful of the time that someone spends on your blog.

I am always thankful that someone has decided to take their short amount of time, and visit my blog.

Always.

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Is that it? No more questions? Waaaah…I could’ve gone on forever. I am a wise old tree: SEND ME MORE QUESTIONS, Y’ALL!

Alison, it has been a real pleasure. Thank you for hosting me.

You are the very kind, supportive, genuine, encouraging blogger that you have spoken of.

Yes, you truly are.

Ask anyone who knows you.

XO

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I’m not sure I can go on about how lovely she is without tripping myself over with over-fawning. But do you blame me? If If you don’t already, you MUST follow her blog Good Day, Regular People, tweet with her and like her on Facebook.