Someone I'd Like You to Meet: Lucy from An Ordinary Mom

If you haven't yet moseyed over to Lucy's place at An Ordinary Mom you've been missing out--she's one of those women that makes me grateful that I got into blogging because she's generous and fun and so . . . so . . . ordinary. And I mean that in the best of ways.

What I mean is that Lucy is a real mom with normal struggles and honest posts that help you feel that you're not the only one who's battled a screaming two year-old, cleaned up after a sick child or even (gasp) yelled at your children.

When I asked her what one thing she most hoped her blog conveyed--what she hoped her readers took away from her posts--she thought for a moment before saying, "That I'm human. That I still yell at my kids sometimes and can still have bad days."

I think that's an important point and I understand what she means. With my own posts I like to write about the good things and the successes, I try not to be negative or critical (though I don't always succeed--check out yesterday's post for proof) so it's easy to get the impression that it's all perfection and rainbows over here. Some days just are burned pancakes, cranky kids, flat tires and snappish words--you can't avoid that, it's life.

But something else Lucy said also made me say, "Me too." I asked her if she had any goals for the coming year--being the time of review and resolutions as 2007 draws to an end--and she said, "Just to be a better person. You know, spend more time with the kids, be more service-oriented, be more optimistic, more happy. Every year I say that I want to be three things: wise, happy and humble."

As a little background, Lucy has been happily married for about ten years and has two children: Keri and Cory. The daughter of a former UCLA academic, Lucy graduated in biology to work as a high school teacher before becoming a full-time mother. She met her husband while at college and he is finally nearing the end of earning his PhD in biochemical engineering (so you just can imagine the discussions at their family get-togethers!) They probably clone sheep for family fun.

Lucy started blogging about a year ago and we chuckled about the curse of the One-Year Mark. Something about hitting that one-year milestone gives bloggers burnout--I saw it all over when I was starting Scribbit a year ago and I didn't understand it but a year later I sure do. Lucy said, "I have two kinds of friends: those who blog and those who don't. Those who don't blog don't get it and they think it's weird but if they start up their own blog then they're hooked and they go through that initial period of infatuation--spend hours reading blogs and participating in the community--it's like Christmas every day."

Christmas every day is right, that's the perfect analogy for the Blogging Crush but after a year you get down to whether you really want to keep at it and if you do then you push through and go on and get better. I hope Lucy is blogging for years to come--and that she moves to Alaska.

Technorati tags: interviews, blogging, motherhood