#GirlsRock: An Interview with Life Enthusiast Britt Skrabanek

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Most of us live.

Some of us LIVE. Britt Skrabanek is one like this. She’s a life enthusiast, and for the unitiated, that doesn’t mean she runs with the bulls or skydives (without that goofy guide guy strapped to your back, either.)

(She doesn’t do those things, but she could.)

Britt is classic and new all at once. She writes to live and lives to write, always hopeful, never satisfied, forever pushing her own boundaries and exploring the outer reaches of others’. She’s been with me for much of this blogular journey.

5 Words I Know (That My Kids Know I Shouldn’t Know)

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Here’s the thing – I don’t know what a story is.

It’s on Instagram and SnapChat. Right? Maybe What’sApp, but that’s less likely. Anyway, I know it’s like a place where people can, I don’t know, write something like a blog post? It’s kind of a big deal, I gather. Yet, no, I don’t know its parameters.

That’s okay – I’m 45 after all.

Like the Washington Redskins, I sometimes get lucky, with the terminology. I coach teenagers and work with millennials. The most awkward thing I can think of this side of Elizabeth Banks reading my mind would be to appear to try to be acting young.

I’m not young.

Go Ask Daddy About Tunes, Cephalopods and the Dirty Origins of Mankind

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What do you call someone who is post-Millennial?

I know I could find it on Google, but that’s not important. See, that’s where my kids are. That next generation. They’ll be the ones poking fun at you, millennials, for your antiquated ways. At least, their kids will be the ones.

So when a kid of mine travels with me, beside me in the front seat because the youngest among them is now 12, the conversations between Generation X and Generation Next happen anyway.

Sometimes, with Marie, it’s welcomed silence. On mountain roads coming from or going to Warren Wilson with Elise, it’s one really long story, interrupted by snack breaks and naps (her, not me.) With Grace, it’s a combination of those.

Go Ask Daddy About The Olympiad, Stuffed Animals and How Many Horses One Dude Really Needs

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Mexico isn’t known particularly for its ultra-fast Wi-Fi.

At least, not in room 101 of the Fiestamericana Resort, and it’s 4 a.m., and you’ve just questioned the wisdom of having just called room service for a bacon cheeseburger. You root around your email and answer blog comments, but not much more.

Not at the end of a day that you’d kind of wish would never end.

Some moments in life can become transformative before you even realize there’s room to transform. During our company trip, leaders challenged us to #challengewhatspossible. Although that sounds an awful lot like business speak, there’s more to it than that.

Guest Post: Jillian, of Jillian Loves, on Blogging

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Courage courses where it chooses to course.

It could be in voicing your heart or remaining silent. It’s there when you retreat and also when you walk up to the table of strangers and say hello, not knowing what to expect or how your life is about to change forever, potentially. But you do it.

Today’s guest blogger knows courage.

Jillian writes Jillian Loves, and once wrote Finishing is Winning. Like many of us, Jillian loves to write. Like many of us, Jillian struggles to find the time to sit down (or even lean against something) and actually get her fingers on the home keys.

Today, Jillian is here to talk about the reasons she stopped blogging – and reasons she should start again.

Please give her a warm CD welcome. And be sure to check out her blogs – both of them – when you get a chance. Also, in the comments, please share some of your owns struggles and trimphs when it comes to this affliction we call blogging.

Go Ask Daddy About Crustacean Cravings, Noodle Knowledge, and Incredible Heroes

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I’m all about culinary diversity.

You won’t believe me, given the playtime the Gastronomic Trinity – cheeseburgers, pizza, and tacos – gets here. But I’ve eaten Indian food for the first time recently, thanks to my millennial/liberal friends. Took a break from the burger joint and everything.

(They can keep their sushi, though, actually.)

I love some Pad Thai, also. I hadn’t had it in my first 43 years on earth. Sometimes, the sense of adventure in food comes without me knowing it. I accidentally ate alligator once. I ordered fish on a stick in a rural north Florida town.

Guest Post: Cassie, of Secure Thoughts, on Parental Control Tips for Holiday Gifts

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Grace sprung for her own tablet recently.

She justified the purchase – and also a llama keychain made from real llama fur and a tiny Peruvian blanket – as good investments, the kind of thing she could pass down to her kids someday. (I love this idea.)

One thing I need to pass down to my own kids: A plan for cyber security, not just for the content she can access, but to protect her accounts online.

That’s where Cassie comes in. She writes for a website called Secure Thoughts. No, this isn’t a site that safeguards my dreams of pizza buffets with Katlyn Carlson. It’s Internet security for everyday people. You know, like you and me.

♨️ Go Ask Daddy About Hot Spots, Fallen Planets, and Kitschy Shirts

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Guess how I thought of opening Go Ask Daddy this week?

I had designs on a scathing prediction of boredom and boneheadism in the Super Bowl on Sunday. Final score: Patriots 9, Seahawks 8. It’s the lousiest championship game in the history of Jesus.

Marshawn Lynch fumbles three times and rushes for 3 yards. Tom Brady throws seven interceptions, and Seattle can’t muster a touchdown. Both coaches draw the writer’s block when it comes to rule-bending.

That’s saying something. Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll redefine the term, ‘cheat sheet.’

🤑 5 For Friday: Inventions That Should Have Made Me Rich

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I could’ve been an inventor.

It was the science part I had a problem with. I’ve had ideas the kids even got excited about. Well, OK, one. Another one grossed them out. Madison, in fourth grade, drew a picture of this silly cell phone with a glass surface that you could use as a computer.

Crazy kid. She called it the I-computer, and this is what it could do:

“The new i-computer can go anywhere on the Internet. It is just like a real computer. You can load songs onto it too, instead of going home to load songs, you can load songs on it. It’s a fun, portable computer, and you can fit it in a cellphone holder!”