Every Elizabeth Cady Stanton Needs A Susan B. Anthony

Ready for something a little fluffier today, huh? By the way, thanks to Amanda for her super thoughtful response yesterday.  Raise your hand if you want to see her as a guest writer! (Sorry, Amanda, I couldn't help it).  Really, if any of you has a great idea for a post, or even want to write it yourself and put it in this space, please e-mail me and let me know. I'm hounding Tashmica to do a current events guest spot as well, in case anyone was thinking of tagging her it:)

Oh, I'm not done embarrassing my friends.  I would like to occasionally post about a group of women or woman who has been particularly inspiring or supportive.  Because we all need to be inspired and supported.  Maybe I'll just settle on Tash for today, since she's not easily embarrassed and has herself out there in public spaces.  So, forgive me, Tash, but the spotlight is on you, babe.

True story: I barely knew Tashmica, just by rubbing shoulders at MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers, a faith based mommy support group thing). I thought she was funny and vivacious and she had these Genocide Intervention bumper stickers plastered on her minivan.  You must understand that at the time, NO ONE in that MOPS had any such thing on their bumpers.  Or anywhere else.  One day we were cleaning up after MOPS and I, no joke, walked up to her and said, "Do you drink beer?"  At a MOPS function at a conservative church.  I have no idea what came over me.  The Holy Ghost, I think. I proposed that she had a cause, I had a cause, we could learn about each other's causes over beer, and that we would be friends, I just knew it.

Delightfully, she accepted.  2 MOPS moms met at Harper's, a college bar on the strip in East Lansing and drank Sparty beer talking about genocide and trafficking.  We were the only people in there not looking for a hook up, bent over our one beer each because we had to drive home to our children, conspiring how to save the world. 

You must understand that up to this point in time, I had never conspired to save the world.  Or much of anything.  Ever.  Tashmica was literally a person who changed my life.  She has given me courage, motivation, inspiration, and undying support.

She was single-handedly and doggedly running a self-started non-profit organization in Lansing to stop genocide, specifically in Darfur.  While helping her husband run the family flooring business (Heritage Flooring, represent!) and bringing up 2, and then 3 little boys.  She demonstrated to me how to juggle, how to let the little things go, how to throw yourself into life, how to face down failure, and how to do it all looking great.  Well, I'm not sure I mastered that last part, or really any of it, but I learned.  I was inspired.  I read the news more, I researched more, I listened more.

The other thing about Tashmica is that she unfailingly supported me.  She totally involved herself in my little Michigan Chapter of Women of Purpose (future posts on that are coming). And even more noteworthy, she listened to me for hours when I was in Crisis of Faith, 2.0.  And she never stopped believing in me or my faith.  She seriously was one of the reasons I made it through that valley with faith at all.  She never judged.

She now is living out her talent working for the Nyaka Orphanage in Uganda, Stateside.  She has been through a lot of messy things in her life, and not just survived, but managed to change people's lives.  She advocates for victims of abuse.  She's still a mommy and a wife.  And she's still a dear, dear friend and I can't even do things like start a slightly controversial blog without her weigh-in.

So everyone, be inspired! And now I have to put all Tashmica's links over on the side of this page.

*Title reference? If you don't know, we'll feature it on the next fun feminist facts day.