Come celebrate with me (and win something fun!)

It was nearly 6 years ago on November 5, 2007, that something quite miraculous occurred. In a certain local paper, page 3, Monday edition, a column appeared with a face and a name.

I can’t tell you how surreal it still seems. For a girl who didn’t know she was a writer, but whose husband told her she was, it was a crazy, wild thing when a path opened up in a place that she’d never expected.

For weeks, she wrote and she wrote, and she wrote just one more, and people, they told her they loved it. They said that they laughed, and sometimes they cried, “but mostly,” they’d tell her, “we laugh.”

Then two years ago came a crazy-wild meeting with a fellow she couldn’t have expected. The things that he’d done and the names that he knew, well, they were clear out of her orbit. But he looked at her, and one thing he said, she took it right straight to her heart. “You have to get a name for that column.”

So was born “Grounds for Insanity,” and when it came to her, she knew it was right. The man, he said, “Yes. That’s the right one.” And she, happy, titled the column.

Now, it’s now. And things have progressed. And another friend says, “How ’bout marketing? You’re needing a brand, a tag line that names you.” And she gave the girl her suggestion.

Then another “crazy-wild” of the kind that can’t be “thunk up.” The friend had a friend who was a producer, a writer, an expert on all kinds of media. He looked at her work. He read her proposal, and he answered her marketing questions.

The girl, in an email, said this back to him: “With so little experience in the greater publishing world, no college degree, etc., I feel like I’m flying by the seat of my (usually caffeinated) pants, trying to learn from those around me.” That’s what popped through her fingers.

Caffeinated pants. Caffeinated mom…

And then it came to her, the phrase that summed her all up in a bullet: “One small, caffeinated American mom.” Just like before, she felt the rightness of it in her bones.

Her friend, when she heard it, laughed. Good and hard. So the girl sent it to the producer. “I like it,” he said, “a lot.” And she sighed. Then next, to her businessman/advisor. Another green light, and she grinned one more time.

The marketing team at a large publishing house, they laughed right out loud when they heard it in a different meeting. She laughed, too, herself, having gotten their vote. But it was The Mister who clinched it. He laughed, not once, but at least three or four, and she knew that the line was inspired.

So now. That girl (and that’s me) is so terribly excited and grateful and overall thrilled to have found the right marketing brand that I’m giving away several items in my signature color. You know what that is: O-R-A-N-G-E.

I have two bright and cheerful-as-all-get-out coffee mugs with a broad band of orange that I’m giving away and a super-happy scarf in a shade that almost matches the famous BOP (Bright Orange Purse). See photo above.

All you have to do is leave your name and your email address  and tell me what YOUR signature color is. That’s all. I’ll announce the winner next Monday.

Thank you, oh, thank you for sharing my joy and for celebrating with me.

Happy Monday!