Hey, Who's the New Guy?

...that would be me.

I'm Kate. Sarah, of the Trenches variety, and Ms. Chicky herself, have graced my inbox with their vaulted words, and I'm dipping my toe into the world of group blogging.

Can you lean just a little closer for a minute? Just... pull in a little... yeah, c'mere. Okay, listen. It's kind of a secret. Ready? I'm not a real New Englander.

It's a little sad, I know. I'm just a transplant, and will never be a true Yankee. I pronounce R's at the end of words that end in R, and can allow names that end in vowels to go R-less. I could not - seriously, I've tried - care less about sports. I live in New Hampshire and don't own a gun.

But I like it here. I consider myself a permanent transplant; after we've survived two or eight more years of my husband as grad student at UNH, we plan on moving closer to Boston. I don't get nearly enough opportunities for road rage up here on the Seacoast.

What else, what else? I never know whether my interests are interesting or merely another set of lists. I knit, I travel, I have children (Emily is 7 and Jacob is 3) with the option for more in a year or two. I blog. I'm a sort-of psychologist, doing crisis assessments in the emergency room. I, I, I... you get the idea.

I hope this is fun. I hope to get to know some fabulous new people, because that gives me more chances to gossip about the unfabulous ones out there. I hope not to be boring.

Hi, I'm Binky and I'm a New England Mama

I spent all my teenage years dreaming of bad boys and leaving Connecticut. When I was thirteen, I had a coffee can with a hole in the plastic lid through which I could deposit small bills and loose change. I taped a piece of blue construction paper around the cylinder and wrote on it "Wild West Fund." This was during my obsession with outlaws. I planned to save up the loot for a trip to New Mexico.

I was obsessed with the mafia after that. My focus became New York.

Then I shifted my attention to race car drivers. I looked southward.

Finally, my infatuation with men in scratchy, starched uniforms took hold. Since my status as an asthmatic precluded me from joining the armed services myself, I went to an all women's college in Virginia and did my best to boost morale at the military institute up the Interstate. Free at last. Being on my own, 500 miles from home, was everything I knew it could be.

Imagine my surprise when I met a non-outlaw, non-mafioso, non-race car driving, non-military guy over the Internet and, upon college graduation, moved back to Connecticut to be near him. Then the surprise wore off and it seemed only natural that we'd be together. Eventually, we were both employed in the Worcester, MA, area. We got engaged. We bought a house in northeast Connecticut where house prices were still much more affordable those of the Worcester suburbs. We got married. We had a baby. I quit my job as a public relations specialist with a non-profit to focus on our daughter and my writing.

After three years in our first home, we put it on the market. If all goes well--which I would never, ever assume--the closings for our current home and the one we plan to buy will be held on June 15. The new house is in southeast Connecticut. While maintaining some of the rural charm I appreciate in our current locale, our (hopefully) new town boasts a much closer proximity to the rest of the civilized world.

I look forward to getting to know all of you through this blog and hopefully soon in real life.

It's Introduction Time

I'm terrible at introducing myself. I can't tell what is interesting and what is deadly boring, so I tend to blather on and on and on ...

Oh, sorry! I'm Margalit. I'm very old, and for Ms Chicky, not only going gray down there, but going to the next step, which is even worse than gray. Yikes!

I'm the very happily single mother of teenage twins, known on the Internet as The Boy and the Girl. Which is better than their names at home, which range from the Jackass and the Obnoxious to much worse. Ah, nothing like the teens to really drive home what a deal college is!
I work very part time as a professional blogger! Yes, you can actually make a tidy little pittance writing blogs, and that's just what I make, a pittance. But I enjoy it and hope that eventually I'll get a decent paycheck out of it.

I've been a professional writer my entire adult life. I wrote many very dull books about computer software for various clients as a technical writer, and then broadened my skill set, as they say in HR, and went to the dark side as a manager. I liked the dark side better! But about 6 years ago, a congenital heart defect that had been benign most of my life started to seriously affect me, and I eventually ended up with congestive heart failure and now am fully disabled. I still do stuff, but I have to be very careful, which sucks, and I tire very easily. Plus, the many medications I'm on have rendered me fairly useless when it comes to clear thinking. I would guess my IQ has plummeted since I got sick.

I'm very interested in local and national politics. I'm extremely liberal and try hard to defeat anything remotely conservative. I tend to blog a lot about local and town politics on my blog, which has made me extremely popular (not) with our mayor. Oh well.

I live right outside Boston in a streetcar suburb, where my kids attend one of two local high schools. While I identify as being observantly Jewish, I've given up on finding a synagogue in my community that feels haimish enough for us. So we kind of are lapsed Modern Orthodox/Traditional Conservative looking for a small, lay-led community synagogue. Yeah, right.

I'm a huge RED SOX fan, but really don't care much about other sports, although my son is a Patriots fan as well. I like gardening, knitting, reading, and watching way too much TV. I post a LOST discussion every Thursday, and I'll find some other TV to glom onto in the summer. Maybe Big Brother. I don't know yet. But there will be something.

I also like to cook and bake, and I post recipes on this site fairly often.

We have one pet, a cat, whose Internet name is Worthless Pet. I think that is probably self-explanatory. We really want a dog, but I don't think we can adequately care for one despite living on a huge tract of land.

Thanks to Ms Chicky for starting this up and I really hope we can have a get together someplace soon (close for the non-drivers like moi!) to get to know each other.

Meet the mamas

Our numbers are really starting to grow! Welcome to our new contributors.

I already read most of your blogs but there are some of yours that I'm just starting to visit. Blogs are a lot like high school, we tend to stay in our comfortable social networks, so now might be a good time to introduce ourselves. When you get a sec, write your own post introducing yourself. Give as much information as you feel comfortable providing. At the very least let us know which state you live in.

And if there are other NE blogging mamas that I don't know of but you think would like to join our merry band of revelers send them over. The more the merrier.

Hey there

Hello New England Mamas!

Our corner of the world may be small (representin' six states, yo) but we are fierce.

Can I hear a "Whoop Whoop"?

So this corner of the web is just for the ladies of the NE. If you'd like to contribute to this blog send me an email at Chicky Chicky Baby at hotmail dot com and I'll add you. I have no idea what direction this site will take but I figure if it's anything like our weather this blog should prove to be a wild ride.

Also, there's been a rumble about a NE Mama Bloggers meetup. I'd be more than happy to organize something if there is enough interest. So leave a comment if you'd like to meet other mothers who blog (MOBs - Holla) and, based on interest, I'll get the ball rolling. I'd love some of you other ladies to help out as well - as my organizational skills are not what they used to be - so leave in your comment if you'd like to pitch in. Don't forget to leave your email or send it to me directly at the above address.

Let me hear you, my sisters of the north east. If you know of other Mama bloggers that I may not know about, send them on over too. The more the merrier.

Now, who brought the chowdah and the bee-ah?