Schmutzie

Schmutzie hails from Regina, Saskatchewan and is the founder, administrator, and blogger at Schmutzie.com, performs heroic acts of writing and design at Ninjamatics, and brings some light back into the world at the Grace in Small Things social network. She is also an iPhoneographer, crafter, and a shoe salesperson, because she’s found that elusive 25th hour in the day. Don’t ask her where she put it, though. She’s not sharing.

Beta Dad

Beta Dad is a forty-something stay-at-home-dad of twin girls born in June, 2009. He has spent most of his adult(ish) life making a living as a carpenter, with the occasional interruption for attempted rock-stardom, college, a stint as a high school English teacher, graduate school, and teaching college writing and literature classes. As an army brat, he grew up all over the U.S., as well as in the mountains of Bavaria and the streets (well, the diplomatic apartment complexes, anyway) of Cold War era Moscow. Somehow he landed in Southern California, which surprised no one more than himself. When he and his wife found out she was pregnant with twins, Beta Dad immediately began building an addition on their house that would double its measly 900 square feet of floorspace. He is currently finishing the last details of that project while the babies nap, as well as teaching the odd writing class at night or online, building a deck here and there, and posting compulsively at his own blog. He’s also a pledge at DadCentric, the bitchinest frat in the dad-o-sphere, a contributor to the venerable group blog, Daddy Dialectic, and an occasional aphorist as @betadad on Twitter. Really? You want more? You could be his facebook friend, or “like” the Beta Dad facebook page, or both. Beta Dad feels weird writing about himself in third-person.

Caitlin

Caitlin, a.k.a MommyGeek, is a member of the iGeneration. This means she’s super into technology, and when the robots take over the world, will either be one of the first killed (she knows too much) or recruited to help enslave you (she knows too much – and sympathizes with the robots). Right now she keeps a personal blog, MommyGeekology, runs Rent a Geek Mom web design, and maintains a healthy diet of Cheez Doodles. She’s also a member of the support team at Headway Themes. If you don’t think she’s aiming low, then you haven’t seen her toilets, her closets, her kitchen, her car, Mount Laundry, or her daily attire. You can find her tweeting as @mommygeekology instead of cleaning or cooking nutritious dinners for her two kids, Cupcake (girl, 5yrs) and Geeklet (girl, 3yrs).

Julia

Julia Roberts married into the name. In case you didn’t know, (the famous) Julia Roberts will not call your establishment to make her own tire rotation appointment or to argue about her cell phone charges. To make matters worse, this Julia Roberts husband’s name is Julian. They own a marketing firm together. They know. It’s a bit much for them, too. A geneticist’s dream, they produced two cute kids with a rare syndrome that includes a vision disorder and a crazy kidney disease; resulting in weirdly moving eyes and kidney transplants for both at age of 8. She’d like to dispel the myth that they are heroic; they talk about their kids’ poop just like the rest of you mere mortals. She’s a believer in friends (who cook), extended family (who babysit) and an intuitive husband (who brings her diet coke before she even knows she needs one) she’s happily married to, even with her high maintenance kids. Why happily? They have the agreement that the first one who leaves the marriage has to take the kids. Julia speaks to groups on topics about navigating life as a special needs family. She blogs at Kidneys and Eyes and created a social networking site for special needs families, Support for Special Needs with writer/blogger Dawn Friedman. You can find her on twitter as @juliaroberts1.

Heather

Heather Durdil is an organizationally challenged thirty something wife, mother, & photographer living in small town about 25 miles west of Cleveland, Ohio. When not answering questions like “How are you old enough to have a daughter who drives?” and “You really think people want to read about your life in the internet?” she is taking massive amounts of photos of the said daughters and other people or writing at her blog Domestic Extraordinaire, where her tagline reads “I do it all. I never said I do it all well.” She chronicles her life as a SAHM/WAHM and shows all of her pretty, pretty pictures and some of the not so pretty ones too. You can also find her on twitter under the name @DExtraordinaire.

Robin

Robin Plemmons is not afraid to talk about the things you might be afraid to talk about. Like nipple hair or farting during sex. She lives & blogs in the wonderfully weird & vibrant mountain town of Asheville, NC where she was voted “Blogger I’d Most Like To Have A Beer With” & “Blogger You’d Most Like To See Naked.” She is an artist by trade & creates greeting cards & paintings that you would only send to your most awesomest friends. She fell in love with a local boy with a dirty mouth, married him & then promptly procreated. Their love child, Ruby, entered the world in 2008 & increased the size of their hearts by a bajillion trillion. After feeling the need to lift her self-imposed filter, Robin has adopted the phrase “Balls To The Wall, Y’all” as her own personal motto & is blogging with reckless abandon at ballstothewallyall.com. She is better at showing than telling, is inspired by poop & pee jokes, & encourages others to let their freak flags fly. You can find her colorful, potty-mouthed art at lemonswithapea.etsy.com and if you like stupid shit, follow her on twitter.

Piera

Piera Jolly is a thirty-something wife, mother, blogger, aspiring cookbook author and wannabe photographer living in Atlanta, Georgia. Don’t be fooled by the name though. Piera is not always so “jolly”. Well, unless she’s eating chocolate ice cream with corn flakes watching Dawson’s Creek reruns. Try it. You just might like it. Piera also likes to channel her inner Julia Child in the kitchen and can regularly be found watching old episodes of The French Chef over and over. When she’s not puttering around in the kitchen, Piera is trying to keep up with her energetic three year old son, Lucas or hanging out with her best friend and love of her life, Mike. In 2008, Piera founded JollyMom.com, a savvy blog that provides moms with helpful parenting information, fun child-friendly activities, craft ideas, recipes, and the latest trends for moms, kids, and families. JollyMom.com is also proud to have been named a Power Mom by Nielsen in 2009 and one of Access Communication’s Top 50 Mommy Blogs in 2010! You can find Piera tweeting as @jollymom or on Facebook as TheJollyMom.

 

Marj

Marj Hatzell isn’t a writer but she plays one on TV. She’s a Domestic Engineer, Total Babe, and SAHM of two boys with Autism, ADHD and a variety of other acronyms. Marj was picked last for dodge ball in grade school, was a band geek (she played the flute, and one time, at band camp…), and prefers dogs more than people, which means she has STELLAR social skills. Marj can be bribed to do anything with potatoes and/or bacon. Usually both. Marj also refers to herself in the third person, which is kinda creepy and all Silence-of-the-Lambs-like. If you see her with a bottle of lotion, run. Things Marj likes: snow, skiing,reading, potatoes (did she say that again? Her bad), jeeps, cooking, sleeping, trees and plants, learning foreign languages, crossword puzzles, cryptograms, sudoku and logic puzzles (in pen), old movies, foreign films, teen dramadies, HGTV and sex (DUH!). Here’s stuff she does’t particularly love: porn (unless she’s in it), lima beans, raw onions, cats (except dead ones), summer weather, mean people (they suck), beer (it tastes like ear wax.What do you mean, you’ve NEVER accidentally put your pinky in your ear and then in your mouth? You haven’t? Uh…she hasn’t  either.), discussing politics and religion in polite company. When she isn’t Aiming Low, you can find Marj at her non-paying day job, the wildly unsuccessful blog The Domestic Goddess, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

John

John Cave Osborne is a freelance writer whose work has appeared on such sites as Babble, TLC, YahooShine and the Huffington Post. He was also referenced by Jezebel one time, but he’s pretty sure they were making fun of him. While he’s name dropping, it’s only fair to point out that Ashton Kutcher tweeted one of John’s YouTube videos, but it may have only been because Ashton felt sorry for him. After all, John went from carefree bachelor to father of four in just 13 months thanks to marrying a single mom then quickly conceiving triplets. He chronicled the drastic transition in his 2010 memoir Tales from the Trips. John and his wife, Caroline, just welcomed their fifth child, Grande Finale Osborne, into the world this past July. You can keep up with John on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as well as on his personal blog which he calls (get this) John Cave Osborne.

Aunt Becky

Aunt Becky is not really your aunt. In fact, she’s not anyone’s aunt. She also dislikes vodka, which is particularly stupid since she named her blog Mommy Wants Vodka. She should probably be called forth and beheaded for all of her lying. Needless to say, she’s been blogging and tweeting from @mommywantsvodka since she rode a dinosaur to school and shared a desk with Moses. She’s recently begun another group blog called Band Back Together – no she’s not in a band, either – for people to share their stories of mental illness, abuse, rape, trauma, baby loss and other dark things into the light. So perhaps she should be forgiven for all of her blatant lying. Maybe.

Vikki

Vikki is a bored social worker by day and a mom/writer/pop culture junkie by night. She writes about GLBT issues and parenting at her personal blog Up Popped A Fox and her writing has also appeared at Grace the Spot and Autostraddle. She has an inexplicable fascination with marshmallow Peeps and has used them to make two “films”. She is certain that her most recent endeavor, Bunniver’s Travels,will soon be snatched up by a Hollywood bigwig and she’ll be able to quit her day job so that she never has to go into a hoarder’s house again. She lives in Minneapolis with her partner and two kids. In the real world, she never speaks of herself in the third person. You can find Vikki on Twitter as @uppoppedafox.

Dresden

Dresden is tall, LOVES plaid and hates cilantro. She studied theatre at NYU and RADA. (You can tell she is snobby about it because she spells theatRE the correct way.) She worked in the film industry in LA & soon her nondisclosures will expire and she can tell you all about the size of everyone’s penis ego.  She left LA to take care of her Grandmother as she suffered with Alzheimer’s. The internet got her pregnant (true story), her Grandmother died, and she learned about bad times. She’s now a total Todd Parr storyline living with her awesome Mom and super tall toddler in Philly. She blogs at Creating Motherhood and tweets @DresdenPlaid

Laura

Laura Willard is a writer, blogger, and editor who lives in Southern California. She has successfully avoided using her law degree for six years and counting. This is one of her bigger accomplishments in life. Laura is married to an extremely lucky man and is the mom of a three-year-old and four-year-old through international adoption. She doesn’t get enough sleep and it totally shows. She writes for SheKnows, blogs for Pregnancy and Baby, edits for Red Tricycle and copy edits, too. She also keeps a personal blog, A(n) (un)Common Family, where she tricks people into thinking she’s a great mom with stories about and cute pictures of her adorable kids, then accidentally blows it about once a week with the truth. You can also find her on Twitter @AnunCommonMom. Laura firmly believes sarcasm is a language, so she’s totally bilingual.

Hellraisin

Hellraisin is a figment of your imagination. She manifests your fondest and most forbidden urges: the ones that tell you to drink beer from a wine glass and say “thank you for being a friend” to random elderly women. You can blame all kinds of unbecoming things about yourself on her insidious influence. But if you must pin her down in a space/time continuum pigeonhole, you may consider her a middle-aged mom from the Midwest. She blogs at The Gaytheist Gospel Hour. She has a Master’s degree and the love of a good woman. She is covered with tattoos. Happy?

Alexandra

Alexandra is a writer who has found the secret to getting rich as a blogger that she’ll share with you for just $9.99. When not taking her checks to the bank, Alexandra blogs at Good Day Regular People about life as an overanalyzing mother of three boys trying to go unnoticed in her small town. The most important things you need to know about her are that the internet saves her daily and that she believes the most you can ask for in life is to arrive at the end of it all with your hair messed up, out of breath, and not throwing up. Alexandra is a contributing writer for TikiTikiblog and FunnynotSlutty

Unknown Mami

Unknown Mami is the most interesting woman in the world! Her paper bag alone has experienced more than a lesser person’s 30 gallon garbage bag. Her sweat smells like gardenias. She may or may not be prone to exaggeration, that’s for you to decide. She can be found writing at Unknown Mami, an often humorous blog about life and mami-hood; it’s strong enough for a mami, but made for everyone. She has also been known to get her tweet on. Unknown Mami strives hard to be open-minded and encourages you to NEVER judge a woman by her bag.

Kristin

Kristin Zaslavsky is a decorated member of the antlered community. A marauder on the high seas of corporate America, she is renowned for her ability to invent products that already exist and insults that make no sense. When she’s not busy synergizing backward overflow, she’s trying to scrub the spaghetti stains out of her already shabby clothing. As a result of her failures in that arena, she is the pioneer of the “All Clothes Go Unwashed” school of motherhood and is actively recruiting participants outside of herself.  She is regularly screwing around on Twitter @TamingInsanity and writing at Taming Insanity.

Lori

Lori would like to tell you that she’s a classically trained operatic soprano who runs a shelter for abandoned iguanas in her spare time but she suspects you would know that she’s lying. Instead, she will tell you that she’s a working mom of three oddly low-angst teenagers who hides in a shelter from her demonic cats. Which if you think about it, is basically the same thing. She has been known to invent vocabulary to suit her needs and someone fitting her description has been seen complaining about local donut shortages on Twitter. She also writes at In Pursuit of it All

Erin

Erin Margolin is a bacon-loving Jew and SAHM to twin girls with a third bun in the oven. When she is not overwhelmed by domestic duties, you can find her canoodling with a book and a glass of Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay. If she’s not writing or dreaming about writing, she’s bound to be microwaving chicken nuggets, screaming at her kids or scooping dog poop. Erin hails from New Orleans, but her husband lured her to the land of Oz, Dorothy, & Toto, where she deals with daily withdrawal from pralines, poboys, and drive-through daquiris. Erin is obsessed with plucking her caterpillar eyebrows into submission. She also grapples with residual issues from having a queer dad and getting knocked up after an infertility diagnosis. She loves vampires, carbs, and her bottle of Prozac. You can find her on Twitter: @ErinMargolin & she blogs at Erin Margolin

Peryl

Peryl Manning is freelance writer who is somewhat surprised to find herself the mother of two almost freakishly active and dimpled little boys. While quite enjoying her unanticipated motherhood, she isn’t  entirely sure she should be the one in charge; at thirty-something she still manages to somehow end up sitting in her own gum, and last week she found her credit card wrapped up in the fridge with the leftover pizza. She loves her boys, SpongeBob, mellow mom friends, and anything by Ayelet Waldman; she hates judgy moms, spiders, and anything with truffle oil. She juggles staying at home with her kids, writing a parenting blog for the Seattle Post Intelligencer, as well as contributing regularly to Momtastic Magazine, Mamazina.com, and other parenting magazines and websites, with whatever grace she can manage. You can find her as @momadabsurdum on Twitter.

Poppy

Poppy mothers a nose picker, a window licker and a mean-ager who looks so much like her ex, Rat Bastard, sometimes she would like to smother her with a pillow. When she’s not busy leaving Mint Milano crumbs in the creases of fitness magazines, she selflessly volunteers with the PTA to embezzle latte money. Her life is filled with leisurely trips to the mall, booze filled bon-bons, and navigating domesticity with the best husband she’s had so far. Though her Match.com profile, complete with TMJ disclosure, is on standby, you’ll have better luck finding her blogging at Funnyorsnot or Tweeting.

Mandy

Mandy Dawson is a single mother of two living in California where she spends her time working, canning, cooking, baking, gardening, writing and chicken raising. She’s a regular contributor to Momtastic and has been featured on The Mommies Network, BlogHer and Mamapedia. She spends an inordinate amount of time on her own blog In Mandyland where she writes about anything from her inability to dress herself in a presentable manner to her fascination with infomercials. She’s excited to be writing for Aiming Low Teach, mostly because the last time she taught a class it involved gallons of sticky strawberry jam, five pots of boiling water and an industrial kitchen fan that drown out her voice. She wants you to remember that she’s not a professional chef nor is she a professional crafter. She is, however, a professional talker which is close enough.

Liz

Liz Henry is a writer, blogger, and chin-shaving enthusiast. She graduated Summa Cum Lazy with a degree in English Literature. So, yes, Liz knows how to write properly, but chooses not to. She likes sweatpants, cats and her hetero-lifemate, Slasher. They have a nine year-old daughter who recently wrote a back-to-school paper entitled “I am so cool.” Humility does not run in the family. When Liz isn’t checking her five o-clock chin shadow, you can find her contributing vlogs to iVillage, blogging at The Six Year Itch and tweeting about chub rub and what she has in common with the President of the United States; mainly that they both work from home.

Deborah

Deborah Cruz, aka Truthful Mommy, is the creator of the magic that is The TRUTH about Motherhood. She is a wife, a writer, and semi-crunchy, work-at-home Ninja Mommy. She lives smack dab in the Midwest with her two beautiful little princesses minus the tiaras (on most days) bring the drama (times two) and her trusty sidekick, her husband, who she affectionately calls the Big Guy. Deborah has a Master’s of Art in Liberal Studies from the University of North Carolina Greensboro. She spends her days loving on her family (while trying not to lose her mind), surviving suburbia (while trying not to lose herself) and shuttling her girls between Catholic school, ballet and play dates (while trying not to misplace her children). When she’s not exposing the truth about motherhood, advocating for sisterhood through motherhood or building up her little girls to know that they can rule the world, she can always be found exhausting her potential and realizing her dreams. While waiting on her children in parking lots and pick up lines, she can always be found on Twitter and Facebook, as her iPhone has now become a fully functional appendage. Above all, Deborah is embracing life with her daughters and the Big Guy; taking on each and every trial, tribulation and celebration on little to no sleep. Stop by the blog to see for yourself what a solid intermingling of Mommy brain and verbal diarrhea can produce. It’s all love.

Lori Luna

Lori Luna has been in the business world for over 20 years and comes from major corporations such as The Southern California Gas Company, ticketmaster, and is currently the Director of Events for BlogHer. Lori’s passion as a young woman was to be a professional writer for a major newspaper but turned to business instead. Having always wanted to write this is a new adventure and a return to her dream. Lori holds a bachelor’s degree in business management and currently resides in Northern California.  Lori also volunteers at Hanna’s Dream, Inc.

Dara

Dara was born on an airplane over the Atlantic which has resulted in a permanent situation of being neither here nor there. You could say she’s everywhere, like the wind. Or maybe that’s just her breaking wind… Her superpowers include: pretending she means what she says; sleep-deprivation vanquishing through dancing in the kitchen; and vegetable concealing heat ray vision (aka pureeing microwaved vegetables into dishes they don’t belong in). Sometimes she writes stuff. Occasionally she gets paid for it. And apparently she can make social media make sense. She tweets and titillates and talks about tits.

Kim

Kim Moldofsky knows how to rock a tool belt, but her favorite technique for fixing things in her home is calling up tradesmen she finds on Angie’s List. That said, she’s learning a few things as she works to turn her “new-to-us” 1950s Cape Cod into a modern home. She documents her home improvement projects at Reluctant Renovator, and she fits in an occasional post Hormone-colored Days, the blog she started in the digital dark ages. Kim also connects bloggers and brands and provides social media consulting services so she can pay for all those home improvements.

Wendy

Wendy Henderson is an English mum living in the middle of lots of rice fields in Northern Spain, she forgets how she got there but that’s probably because she’s heavily pregnant with/just given birth to her second child. She’d love to have a day job but her Spanish isn’t up to much more than grocery shopping, so she wastes her time on Twitter as @vbincatalunya and occasionally writes blog posts at Very Bored in Catalunya about being English and living in a rice field.She can often be found bemoaning the lack the British cheese and of course, the weather. In her spare time she speed eats Peanut M&M’s and samples the local wine.

Megan

Megan Gordon is a professional writer, amateur photographer and intermittent dreamer. You can find her on Buy-Her.com or adding a peaceful moment of beauty to your day with her photo blog. She is still trying to decide what she wants to be when she grows up. If you follow her on Twitter you might be there when she finally figures it out.
 

Sarah

Sarah (aka Goon Squad Sarah) spends a lot of time in front of the computer. You can tell because she writes at Sarah and the Goon Squad, Draft Day Suit, That’s Right. You Heard Me, Insert Eyeroll, BlogHer and here. Sarah loves football, beer, singing, sleeping late and Doritos. She lives near Washington D.C. with her husband and boy/girl twins. When she grows up she wants to be Bon Jovi.

Shari

Shari Simpson is the co-author of the comedy “Maybe Baby, It’s You” (Dramatic Publishing, Inc.) and the evil semi-genius behind the blog “Earth Mother just means I’m dusty”. In her more lucid moments, she is also the editor of the parenting website, New Jersey Mommy Poppins and has written for CBS Local. She lives in Hoboken, NJ with her husband and four children (two human, two pug), where she cooks a lot, knits legwarmers that her daughter refuses to wear, and kisses her skillet-faced dogs on the mouth.

Sugar

Sugar Jones is a dreamer, writer, mom, and traveler who loves life… even when it’s not so fabulous. Her four children, ages 6 to 22 have taught her many tough lessons and given her much joy, which is why she forgives them for all the sleepless nights and wrinkles. She hates to repeat herself because life is just too damn short to be talking to people who don’t listen. And although she can cook you into a corner, she refuses to spend hours in the kitchen slaving over a hot stove when there are perfectly wonderful restaurants to dine at. When she IS in the kitchen, she’s whipping up something quick, easy, and delicious. If you’re nice, she’ll share her recipe hacks with you. Always a cheerleader for living out loud, she hopes to encourage others to quit whining and get to living. Sugar blogs at Sugar in the Raw.

JC

JC Little is a mom & director who engages with your funny bone. She blogs a slice of real life with animation and drawings as The Animated Woman and tweets as @LittleAnimation. Also? She loves people.