Other than a couple of elementary-school years that I lived in Texas, I grew up in Cullman, Alabama. When I was little I did pageants, and when I got bigger it was all twirling. I graduated college with a BBA (Business Administration) and a BS (Liberal Arts).
Now, I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. I have two degrees not because of my super ambition but rather because I had such a hard time making up my mind about what to be. It took me a little over five years to graduate. My college advisor said “we should just take all those physical therapy credits and philosophy credits and human resources credits and add them all up so you walk with two tassels instead of one.” He liked me. And that was it. Voila, liberal arts.
Well, I graduated and moved into a tee-tiny apartment (imagine 450 square feet and all of it is Pier 1, which at the time I thought was the summit of good taste) and got my first ‘real job’. A couple of years later, Av and I met and got married in the late ’90s. I am still crazy in love with him.
He’s owned his own business since he graduated college at the University of Virginia. The joke is that his degree is in Religious Studies and…well…when’s the last time you heard of a company with an opening for a Religious Studies major? Um…never. So thankfully he had an idea and ran with it.
I *loved* it. But Av and I wanted to start a family and in 2005 I was so stressed out that I knew I could never have a successful pregnancy working like I was.
I had always enjoyed playing around with graphic design so I learned to do that professionally. I work with Av, and have my own freelance clients too. Creativity and being around creative people are intrinsically good for well-being. Aaaaahhhhh…..
And so guess what!? I got pregnant. And now Av and I have two little boys, just 15 months apart. And they are the best, best, best, best things in the *whole* wide world and I could never be able to even come close to the happiness and gratitude and all the other cheerful words there are for what those little boys are to us. They make my heart sing.
Well! That’s my little story. We live part of the year in New Orleans and have a happy home in central Alabama, and we go somewhere almost every weekend. We cook, we eat, we make things, we enjoy art, we enjoy people.
When the day is over and everyone’s in bed, I put together Deep Fried Kudzu. I hope you like it.
xoxo,
Ginger