Who is this Luanne chic, you ask?

I ask myself the same thing every other day! I’m just simply-- Luanne. I’ve been a lot of things in this life—but mostly, I’ve been a lot of different kinds of moms while raising seven kids. Stay-at-home mom, working mom, divorced mom, homeschooling mom, strict mom, laid-back mom, granola mom, young mom, older mom, exhausted mom, depressed mom, medicated mom, super mom?… I’ve collected quite the parenting résumé over the last 32 years!

Every kid brought out a different version of me. They each came with their own challenges, joys, personalities, and opportunities to make me question what the hell I was doing. As I grew, my parenting changed—and motherhood changed me too, sometimes with me pitching a fit like a toddler.

For some reason, people really like hearing my stories about my kids. They’re usually entertained by them, and every now and then someone tells me they were inspired by how calm I seemed in the middle of some ridiculous chaos. Calm on the outside—WTF?! on the inside.

Now the kids are grown, the house is getting quieter, and I’m entering the empty-nest era—which seems to involve a lot less chaos and a surprising amount of “Okay… now what?”

I’m dating. I’m curious. I’m still figuring myself out. I was raised religious, but consider myself only spiritual now—and honestly, I’m even questioning that word. I’ve changed my mind about plenty of things. I’ve had experiences I can explain and some I absolutely cannot.

So I write.

Sometimes I tell stories. Sometimes I pull on a question until something interesting falls out. Sometimes something comes through me that I didn’t expect. And sometimes I have absolutely no fucking idea what I’m talking about yet.

Those are usually the most interesting ones.