No Longer A Scottsdale Mom, But Always A Friend Of SMB

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“Sarah Powers is…”

For years now, I have been starting sentences with those three little words. Usually they end something like this:

“Sarah Powers is brilliant!”
“Sarah Powers is hilarious!”
“Sarah Powers is encouraging” 
 

My favorite of these sentences is:

“Sarah Powers is my friend”
 

But now, I have to say some sentences that don’t make me happy at all:

“Sarah Powers is leaving Scottsdale.”
“Sarah Powers is moving to California.”
“Sarah Powers is no longer going to be writing for Scottsdale Moms Blog.”
 

I know this is a little behind the scenes, but as one of the original SMB contributors and the first Managing Editor of SMB, Sarah has been a critical part of our team and a huge reason for our success. For those of you who don’t know Sarah Powers personally, she is a fabulous mom, a gifted writer, and an incredibly supportive friend.  This is a great move for Sarah and her family and I know they will be very happy in Southern California. We know wonderful things are in store for them there!

Thank you Sarah Powers for all you have done for Scottsdale Moms Blog and all you have done for me.  Goodbye to our dear friend Sarah. You will be missed!
 
xo
Kirsten 
SMB Managing Editor 
  
Sarah’s final post follows:
sunset, Arizona
Photo: Sarah Powers

In 2010, shortly after having my second baby, I joined Twitter. Not because I had anything to say in 140 characters or less, but because I wanted to find and follow bloggers who were writing great stuff and saying funny things about motherhood. I fancied myself one of them – someday.

In early 2011 a tweet from @ScottsdaleMoms (an account I’d started following based on Twitter’s recommendations, not knowing anything about the blog itself) caught my eye. It was an open call for new contributors, which I answered – having never written a blog post or anything about Scottsdale OR being a mom.

The rest, as they say, is history.

It was here that I found my voice as a parenting writer. It was here that I made connections and gained confidence (equally important, no?) that led to published pieces in magazines, online at The Huffington Post, Babble, and ScaryMommy.com. It was here that I learned how to be an editor, a social media manager, a work-at-home mom. It was here that I found out how much fun it is to be part of an entrepreneurial vision.

Sarah Joy Steph 2012
That’s me in between SMB’s original co-founders Steph Flies and Joy Cherrick – now dearest friends of mine. Photo by Jess of Session Nine Photography.

Without dragging you all down memory lane with me, I’ll say just this: Scottsdale Moms Blog was born out of the desire to connect moms to one another in our community. It did that for me (I have several treasured friendships to show for it) and I know it has done that for so many of you. But it did something even more for me, too: it gave me an audience for my words. And without an audience, a writer is very much alone.

Kirsten asked me to pick a few of my favorite posts to revisit as I say goodbye to SMB. Since my writing is sometimes serious and sometimes silly, I picked a couple of posts from each camp. If you missed them the first time, maybe they’ll speak to something you have going on as an Arizona mom these days (I really hope it’s not scorpions, though).

Read on for some of my favorite posts, and in the meantime, I hope we can stay connected online. Follow my obsessive photo-taking on Instagram, or connect with me on Twitter. And if you have tips for making a home for our family in Orange County – of if you just want to say hi – you can always email me at sarah @ powersofmine . com (no spaces, of course).

xo,
Sarah

Dream Photography Studio IMG_3377
Photo by the incomparable Stacey Woodward of Dream Photography Studio

Opting Out Of The Mommy Wars

But here’s why the whole discussion doesn’t work for me. It assumes too much. It forces us to stick one of those Hello, My Name is… labels on the way we spend our days (which, by the way, will probably change in a few years anyway – hope you didn’t use a Sharpie on that label!) without consideration for the fact that not every SAHM or WOHM or WAHM (acronymsOMG!) is a carbon copy of the one sitting next to her on the panel. Most of us didn’t ask to be on a panel, or to wear the team jersey, or to be pitted against our friends and neighbors.

Most of us did not enlist to fight in the mommy wars. We are too busy brokering peace treaties between the block-throwing aggressors and Occupy Naptime protestors in our own families. We are too busy actually being friends with the women on the “other team” – the ones at whom Anderson would so badly like us to throw stones – comparing notes on how much a day can suck no matter what kind of shoes you’re wearing, commiserating about sleep woes and celebrating potty training triumphs.

Most of us are not fighting.

{read the rest of the post here}

How to Plant a Garden in Arizona {without getting your hands dirty}

7. Realize that now that you have two huge empty wooden boxes in your backyard, that this might be the year it actually happens.

8. Let the boxes sit empty for 4-6 weeks, taunting you and your follow-through abilities while also acting as giant litter boxes for your backyard cats. Put “Call Tino the irrigation guy” on your to-do list. Look at it several times a day.

9. During this time, send your husband helpful gardening links you come across online. Don’t read them–just forward. Be grateful for his Excel wizardry, a result of a decade of Fantasy Sports League Management (and, to a lesser degree, a career in finance), which will result in a spectacularly designed spreadsheet detailing what you will be planting and when.

10. Tag along with your friends to the nursery. Spend $100 on organic soil and stinky manure. Pray that the four-year-olds don’t break every garden gnome in the whole store.

{read the rest of the post here}

7 Things I’ve Learned {The Hard Way} About Scorpions

Like any good wife, I didn’t believe him for a second and thought he was completely over-reacting. After all, he wasn’t screaming in pain and hadn’t seen anything when he’d looked at the spot on the wall where his elbow had made contact. To rule out the off-chance that he wasn’t insane, we went to investigate. Sure enough, when we pulled the bed away a few inches, a huge bark scorpion was crawling leisurely up the wall, just inches from our pillows.

And then I did what has become commonly known in our family as “Sarah’s scorpion dance” (picture much frenetic arm-waving and foot-stamping). After we had captured the scorpion using a water glass and flushed it down the toilet, I calmly considered our options: 1) Move, 2) Burn down the house, and 3) Move.

{read the rest of the post here}

Home, Sweet Arizona

Raising my kids in Arizona has, more than anything else, helped me feel connected to my community. I may never be a true local, but I have two little Arizonans living under my roof, kids who have never lived in snow or at the beach but who know how to avoid hot car seat buckles and can swim like fish. And the more local moms I meet (that means you – yes, YOU), the more rooted I feel.

When I first became a mom in 2008 I was lucky to make some really close friends with babies the same age as mine, and they are still my closest confidantes (you know, the people you can text about failed naps, first steps, world-class diaper blowouts). Beyond that group, though, I now recognize people in the grocery store, at the zoo, in the preschool parking lot. We may not know each other’s names but our paths have crossed enough times at the parks and libraries that we smile in recognition as we wrangle our little ones into the shopping cart.

We smile because we’re connected the crazy circus of parenthood, and no matter where we individually hail from, we’re doing it here. In Arizona.

Home.

{read the rest of the post here}

4 COMMENTS

  1. Great intro Kirsten. And thanks Sarah for all that you have done for SMB. You will be dearly missed by all of us!

  2. So touching Kirsten! Sarah you ARE what Scottsdale Moms Blog is all about. You will be so very missed! We wish you all the best in your new adventure!

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