Lydia (known in real life as Julianna W. Miner)
Julianna is a mother of three who has been married to her curmudgeonly and attractive husband for a hundred and twenty-two years. She is raising tweens and teens and every second is a precious blessing. She's been both a stay at home and working mom and found both to be exhausting.
She teaches Public Health at a college she couldn't have gotten into because she made bad choices in high school. She loves Public Health so much, it's frankly a little off-putting and she will absolutely talk to you about infectious diseases while you're trying to eat dinner.
She lives in the suburbs and used to drive a mini-van called the Big White Tampon (BWT). Then she got a newer white mini-van that was much nicer than the old one so they called it The Pearl. Her house is always dirty but the food is always good. She has two ridiculous dogs and she will tell you all about them and show you pictures on her phone until you ask her to stop.
She loves Jane Austen and watches all the movies at least once a year. The 1995 BBC version of Pride & Prejudice is the best one and she'll fight you, so don't even talk to her about Matthew McFadyen. She has seen all the Marvel movies two hundred times and has strong opinions about Captain America. She adores all things Miyazaki and judging by her Netflix account, she's in seventh grade.
She lives in the suburbs and used to drive a mini-van called the Big White Tampon (BWT). Then she got a newer white mini-van that was much nicer than the old one so they called it The Pearl. Her house is always dirty but the food is always good. She has two ridiculous dogs and she will tell you all about them and show you pictures on her phone until you ask her to stop.
She loves Jane Austen and watches all the movies at least once a year. The 1995 BBC version of Pride & Prejudice is the best one and she'll fight you, so don't even talk to her about Matthew McFadyen. She has seen all the Marvel movies two hundred times and has strong opinions about Captain America. She adores all things Miyazaki and judging by her Netflix account, she's in seventh grade.
She's the author of a book about raising kids in the tech age called Raising a Screen Smart Kid. It's really good but also nerdy and research-based, so be prepared for that.
Email Julianna to speak about kids, tech and social media here! juliannawminer (at) yahoo (dot) com
Who is the best editor/contributor/Mommy in Residence in the history of ever?
Guru Louise (known in real life as Claire Goss) has been a great friend and helper to Mommyland since the beginning. She is a mother of three who has been married for a long time to a really swell guy. She is currently a suburban work-at-home mom to her kids, who are ages 6 and under--which means she spends much of her day discussing and subsequently wiping bodily fluids.
She first started reading Rants in 2010 after her second child was born and she stopped sleeping and having rational thoughts. Mommyland quickly became a happy escape where she could maniacally laugh at her laptop with a glass of wine while receiving nervous looks from her husband and children.
Guru Louise (known in real life as Claire Goss) has been a great friend and helper to Mommyland since the beginning. She is a mother of three who has been married for a long time to a really swell guy. She is currently a suburban work-at-home mom to her kids, who are ages 6 and under--which means she spends much of her day discussing and subsequently wiping bodily fluids.She first started reading Rants in 2010 after her second child was born and she stopped sleeping and having rational thoughts. Mommyland quickly became a happy escape where she could maniacally laugh at her laptop with a glass of wine while receiving nervous looks from her husband and children.
She earned her "Guru" status by accurately predicting that Kate and Lydia's blog would become a wildly popular sanctuary for all moms who are about to lose their damn minds. You can read some of her other writing at Babble or Pregnant Chicken. She thanks you for reading and feels undying gratitude to Kate and Lydia for saving her from commitment to the nervous hospital.
What happened to Kate?
Our dearly beloved Mommy Emeritus Kate
(known in real life as Kristin Wilson Keppler)
Short version? Her youngest kid went to kindergarten and she went back to work full-time. She and Lydia started the blog together in 2009. But when her youngest child went off to school, Kate got a great job and off she went! She still contributes with all of the Give It Up Mommyland projects, which would never get done without her.Here's her bio: Kate is a mother of three who has been married for 11 years to two husbands. She works full time in the TV news business, which means she's basically failing at two jobs rather than one. However, her bosses tend to praise her work, mostly because she doesn't threaten to send them to their rooms every seven minutes.
And, she looks in her very fashionable closet and sees that the amount of money she has pissed away on shoes that she has no place to wear is more than her entire annual salary. She hopes you enjoy reading MommyLand as much as she enjoyed writing it.
About MommyLand
I started MommyLand with Kate back in the Fall of 2009, when we both realized we were slowly going insane. Rather than take copious amounts of prescription medication, we wrote each other emails about losing our schmidt and doing too much laundry. One day, Kate decided that these emails should become a blog and Rants from MommyLand was born.
Now that Kate's kids are older and all in school, she has returned to full-time work in her chosen profession (she is a swanky TV producer). She still pops by to make jokes and help out with projects that lend a hand to moms and families in need. About the same time she went back to work, Guru Louise stepped in to help with writing, editing, and all the Give It Up Mommyland projects.
What's with the pseudonyms, you idiots?
Kate and I started the blog writing under assumed names to protect our secret identies and guilty secrets. And also the privacy of our families. None of the names used on here are real. But then we had the opportunity to write rants for other people (like stuff for Babble.com, The Huffington Post, Nickelodeon's Parents Connect and Washington Times communities) and go on TV and prattle on about stuff, so we had to start using their real names for that.
