Allow myself to introduce… myself #trashcanblogger

I’m what’s known as a Trash Can Blogger. We write about just about anything. We don’t specialize in organizing tips or recipes or deals or any of that – we just go dumpster diving and write about whatever comes our way.

I’m proud to be part of this Elite Group that isn’t really Elite at all, and for at least now, we plan to do blogging prompts every week. If you’ve been a longtime reader you know that I’ve tried about 400,000 “Weekly” things and they’ve never stuck. Let’s see if I can make it through this one!

This week’s writing prompt is:

Either a writer doesn’t want to talk about his work, or he talks about it more than you want.- Anatole Broyard

I was born in Little Rock, Arkansas to a United Methodist Minister and his feminist, elementary-educator wife. I wrote in a post last year that as the third child and the only daughter in the family, I’m sure my mom introduced me to her ERA-supporting friends much like Simba was introduced in The Lion King.

I grew up all over Arkansas, my mother made the career change from teacher

Mom and me at Unite Against The War on Women Rally, Fayetteville, Arkansas, 4/28/12

Me, Ancient Aliens Hair Giorgio Tsoukalos, and Mom, Summer 2011

to minister, and I never lived anywhere longer than four years between the ages of 5 and 9 (two years from 9 ’til college). My parents split up when I was 11, and being the daughter of a divorced female minister who wasn’t afraid to use her brain put me in the spotlight. I was a total dork; I had few friends and the ones I did were and are still dorks. But because I moved around a lot, those few friends accumulated, and now we’ve all reunited on Facebook.

Over the years my confidence grew and I graduated from a liberal-arts college called Hendrix in Conway, Arkansas. Hendrix is the Alma Mater of veteran actress Mary Steenburgen, as well as young actress and personal friend Ashlie Atkinson. I majored in Sociology and Anthropology – otherwise known as “You really should get a Master’s Degree if You Want to Do Anything With this.”

But my heart was in writing. The hipster in me says I was blogging before it was cool – but from the time I was in second grade on, I always kept some type of journal. I started maintaining web sites in 1995 and have spent the past 18 years using the Internet to prattle on about myself and issues that are important to me. People, I was using Blogger before Google owned it. I was using Blogger when you had to use an FTP client to upload your stuff. That’s how old-school I am.

I am an ex-newspaper reporter, for which I won multiple awards in Arkansas and Louisiana. If you have to ask why I’m no longer in the newspaper biz, I’ll ask you when you last read a newspaper. I’ve been self-employed for nearly four years and I love my job as a blogger. I have horrible anxiety and do best when I’m working from home. It also lets me give my own opinion on stuff. And I get to share info on said stuff with you. And sometimes even give away said stuff!

So, that’s me. If you’ve managed to read this entire post? Amazing. This  is longer than most of my college papers.

Want to read more? Check out these post from other Trash Can Bloggers:

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