I Got Answers

Yesterday, I told you that if you had a question for me, I'd answer it. So here goes:


1. What is your best advice for brand new first time moms?


My best advice for brand new moms is follow your gut, find your own voice, and use it.  Everyone has ideas and techniques that worked for them and their unique child. It can be so easy to feel pushed and pulled with the parenting undercurrent. At the end of the day, decisions regarding your children and your parenting are yours to make.  Find the power in that, love it, and protect it. Learn from your mistakes (or rather, the times you didn't listen to yourself) and allow that to strengthen your resolve to parent your child, your way. 


2. Is it hard to have "real" friends as a public person??


I think it's hard to have "real" friends as a person. I am aware that I am considered a "public" person, but on the public person spectrum in this town, I'm a really little tiny fish in a big pond.  Since I was young, I have always had trouble discerning who my real friends are.  I like people, and want to believe the best in them, but I would say that I really only have a small handful of real friends, and a big handful of really nice people to hang out with.  Also, being a mom has really changed my friendships.  Friends that don't have children often (not always) have a hard time understanding the amount of advance planning it takes to get together when you have kids. Friends with kids are often busy with their parenting role and it's hard to fit in the time to connect.  I guess I would define the "real" friends as the ones who just understand each other and you can pick up with whether it's been a week, a month, or a year.  


3. What is your favorite color and why?


I think it's green.  I don't quite know why.  I think I know that green looks good on me, and I'm Irish.  I tend to gravitate to green a lot in clothing and decorating.  


4.  When can we get the Get Real Girls back? (For those of you who don't know me outside of this blog, Get Real is a Saturday morning radio show focusing on living your best life that I have done for the past five years with my dear friends Liv Lane and Joan Steffend.  The show was cancelled 2 weeks ago to make room for a new show, the Weekend Dirt which I am hosting that goes in an entirely different direction.)


I don't have a definite answer for you here, and I'm sorry about that.  Please know that there is a lot of work, and many conversations behind the scenes happening to try to give you more Get Real in a different package.  We have a website set up so you can join the mailing list to find out where we land next.  Please stay tuned, and again, know that there are plenty of conversations happening right now around the best way to get the same messages you heard on the radio to you in a different way.  Trust me.  


5. How do you cope with working, 3 kids, husband, household and all that goes with it? I find it so overwhelming a lot of the time. Maybe I am doing something wrong. with 4 kids.


If you could hear the voices in my head (and the voice on the phone to my mother regularly), you would not call what I do "coping." I love being a mom, but at present, each day feels more like "survival." Just like you probably think I have all my shit together, other people probably think you have your shit together. I feel like that could not be further from the truth, and you probably feel the same way.  Right?  You aren't doing anything wrong, you are doing your best. I have to repeat this to myself for hours on end. THEN, when I don't believe it, I call my mom and have her tell me. I am extremely lucky because I have consistent help. I have a wonderful nanny who is really more part of our family. She rescues me far more than I thank her for.  I also have a husband who goes above and beyond, and a mother, and in-laws who regularly drop everything to give me a hand when necessary.  It really does take a village, and it still feels overwhelming.  I keep reminding myself that someday I'll regard these crazy days as "the good old days." So, if they're going to be those someday, why not make them that today... (Also of note, my standards for housekeeping and organization have gotten extremely low, this helps a lot... sometimes.)


6. What do you like to do on Friday nights?


Friday nights are sacrosanct for Mr. Lindstrom and myself.  Remember the nanny I mentioned earlier? She's in charge of the kids on Friday nights and Mr. Lindstrom and I have a date night. Every Friday. So, we do date things.  Every Friday. This is the key to keeping our marriage together and keeps us connected in the middle of our otherwise crazy lives. 


7. Do you ever get sick of marketing yourself?


Yes. I do. Marketing yourself feels sort of weird. But, I am my business. I actually believe that whether we realize we are, or not, everyone is always marketing their "self."  Especially with facebook and twitter now part of the common experience.  Each time you put something out there, you are telling people about what kind of person you are and what they can expect from you. When you are at work, you are constantly showing why you are the right person for the job you have. When you're meeting a new friend, or going on a first date, you show that friend or date you at your best.  That's marketing. Maybe not in the traditional sense.  It's still you, it's just you at your best. I call it "being on." I think it is tiring. This is why I think it's important to have a person, or group of people in your life with whom you don't have to be "on."  


8. Margaret K said... Can we get together?


If this is the Margaret K who I went to college with, then yes! I would love to! 


9. Tell us some "behind the scenes" stuff about Mytalk 107.1 Who is friends? Who is messy?...


I get asked this all the time.  If you really want to get a feel for the environment at My Talk 107.1, I highly recommend you listen all day on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week. The weekday hosts will be spending 53 hours together in a Pleasureland RV at the MN State Fair, and it will be broadcast in multiple ways.  That will tell you more than I could ever tell you. Because I don't work regularly on weekdays anymore, I'm not really privy to much, but here are some little fun facts:


- Lori and Julia wipe down the studio like crazy every day.  There is an industrial sized container of cleansing wipes in the studio with Julia's name on it.  


- Katie K9 always leaves a treat in the studio on Sunday nights after her show with a note to those who come after her telling us to "have a good show." She's so nice, and has been on the air since the beginning of the station in June of 2002.


- Everyone has a really messy desk.  EVERYONE. There's always stuff coming in from PR companies. People don't always  know what to do with it all, so it sort of hides under desks or on top of shelves. I think that the neon green Borat swimsuit is still in someone's desk drawer.  


- Donny eats the stinkiest lunches in the entire world.  He is an extremely healthy eater, and is very focused on getting his omega 3s.  He eats tuna every other day.  I feel like he used to eat sardines, too, but he denies that.  I just know that you can smell his lunch if you are within 10 feet of his desk on tuna days. We all tease him about it.


- The coffee at the radio station really has to be doctored up in order to taste good.  


- People on different shows rarely see each other.  People come together at meetings and occasional parties, but on a daily basis, hosts really only interface with each other as they are changing over at the end of one show and the beginning of the next.  


- Cohosts try to avoid having conversations about what they'll be talking about on the air so that the reactions are fresh and authentic.  


See, nothing too juicy. Really, It's just like any office setting - a lot of people doing a lot of work to make the radio station awesome.