I'm proposing....

Yes, you know I am married. But that leaves you wondering who I am proposing to and why would a married woman blast her extra-marital business across the internet for everyone to judge...

I am writing a PROPOSAL...
for a BOOK...
MY book for teen girls.

Ladies, is there not enough gossip in the tabloids to hold your attention? You needed to come here to try and find some? You know you don't get gossip here. Just good ole' fun about being a mom and my tricks of the trade when it comes to dealing with kids...and now TEENS... of my own and other people's teens.

"You are AMAZING! I just wanted you to know I couldn't have gotten through this year without you!"
After I got this message I realized how this incredible ride I am on is just the beginning - Ladies and Gentlemen, we are just about to pull out of the gate...HOLD ON, it's going to be a crazy ride!

This morning my PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE devotional said that people who look into their own future and envision their lives "down the road" actually have more success than people who just plod along day by day.

Well, would ya look at that, all the people who think I am an incurable DREAMER are right...and I don't have to feel like I am getting tsk-tsk'ed by the teacher when they say it. Now, the next time someone says, "She's got her head in the clouds again..." I can say, "YOU BET I DO!! Grab your tickets now, you're gonna wanna see THIS!"

So, the theme of my morning devotional was PERFECT for the day I would rush out the door to my favorite and most productive writing spot - PANERA - as soon as my husband packed up the kids for the pool. I have been asked to plot my marketing plans for this book.

So, get comfy and insert the dreamy music here...

I see a shelf filled with a series of books and journals, activity books and picture books by Michelle Kemper Brownlow for teen girls that will raise their awareness of the world around them and give them the permission to OWN the space they take up. That space will be unique and beautiful like each of them and will have distinct boundaries that will celebrate the kind of woman they are "training" to become. Now, I know all these books would be spread all over the bookstore in their respective genre - but just humor me. Let's PRETEND I would have my own shelf. Isn't it pretty?

I see my iPhone (which I don't have yet) and make sure I synced it (which I don't know how to do) with my calendar so that the directions to the school I am speaking at later this week is included.

I see myself lurching back and forth as I tell just one of my many goofball stories that accompany every workshop I run. I have sat with young girls for over 9 years and made stories from my own life relevant to what we were talking about that day. Whether it was girl drama, boys and boundaries or parents, I have the story - ask them, they'll tell you!

I see flying (gasp, gasp, I don't like planes....breathe....if God wants me to I will....that's better) to events, book signings, TV appearances (OK - that felt weird to type), speaking engagements, schools to share something I have lived through and learned with girls who are struggling to stay afloat in this thing we throw at them called life. Sometimes it seems we parent from the lifeboat and just let them flail until they "kinda" get it!

The plans God has for this project are the ones I want to follow. I have followed His lead from the beginning. When I was struggling with what I was supposed to be doing with my life - go back to teaching high school, continue writing children's programs/curriculum for churches and teaching teens on Sunday, go into a different field altogether - I prayed and had a long chat with God. Thankfully He doesn't mind that sometimes that means meeting me in the bathroom. I picked up one of my own teen's devotionals and opened it. The words that jumped out at me said, "WHERE IS YOUR MISSION FIELD?"

Teens have been my passion since I taught back in the mid- 90's but I guess I always thought my connection with them was completely based on the fact that being right out of college, there weren't all that many years between us. But when my own children became tweens and the conversations would go from in front of the TV to around the kitchen table WITH ME... I realized they can sense how much I love them without me even having to do anything special. Just listen, be my goofy self and let them BE who they are.

I started to think about all the books out there for them... there were some but what teens go into the bookstore and head right to the self-help section for teens? What books could I suggest for them?

Well, they wanted me to help them now.... NOW... not when I found a book and after they had the chance to read it.What could I offer with my writing background? What kinds of topics would I cover?

That's when I decided I would focus on TEEN GIRLS.

My "Advisory Team" of 30 lovelies that I like to refer to as The Butterfly Girlz have shared their lives and their best advice with me for the book and the girls from "the gathering" group on facebook, which is comprised of 230+ girls from around the country, is always buzzing with issues, advice, girls crying out for help.

I have even spent hours on the phone with MOMS who beg, "I just need your advice..."

There is a need for this book. There is a need for teen girls to feel like they have someone to turn to.

So, I see this book becoming almost interactive when paired with the LIVE scenario of a facebook group!

So, we are headed up the hill of this big ride that starts with this book proposal.

So, as you see, I propose.

Help for Moms of Teens...

It has been a while since I posted here b/c I have been so busy running the program for teen girls  that has just taken off like wild fire...let me recap and let you know what has been going on...

When I first thought about writing a book for teen girls it came out of my frustration with what I was seeing on TV and hearing on the radio that was compromising the RESPECT our girls should have for themselves. How can a girl have respect for herself while she is singing, "C'mon rude boy, can you get it up...." Yep, that's our lovely Rhianna telling our girls to challenge boys in this way. So, I tried to come up with a way to describe how to HOLD onto our self-respect. One day I sat in Panera and wrote The Legend of the Butterfly Girlz.

A couple months later, I put out a status on my facebook calling for TEEN girls who would like to be my "go-to" girls while I write my book for TEEN GIRLS called, "My NET Worth: Every Girl's Guide to Catching Self-Respect & Keeping It." I wanted to have quotes, advice and anecdotes from REAL teens to make my book authentic and something a teen girl would hang onto like a security blanket. I saw this book as being a life-line. Out of that post came an amazing group of 31 teen girls who are now known as "The Butterfly Girlz."  These girls range in age from 12-18 and are from across the country. We have a PRIVATE facebook group where they are free to discuss teen issues. I post regular questions that help me to gather quotes and anecdotes for the book but at the same time their candid answers, humor and transparency is helping them forge friendships stronger than some forged within the same schools.

I saw the amazing strides these girls were taking and thought it was a crime to keep all of that good advice and support within the walls of the Butterfly Girlz group. So, I added a new PRIVATE group called "the gathering" which we opened just a couple weeks ago. We started with our 31 girls. Members of the group have the capacity to add friends and girls can request to join. We now have a working group of over 230 girls. The "Butterfly Girlz" have a large presence on this site and jump at the chance to support girls who post their heartache over a lost love, their shock at a pending divorce, etc. I am on "the gathering" for hours daily overseeing and offering advice. I have had girls say to me that they never imagined an adult would care enough to help them with their problems. That is so sad to me!

My teaching, workshops and book focus mainly on SELF-RESPECT and PERSONAL BOUNDARIES. I work with girls daily on "scripting" their responses to difficult situations. I have adapted a couple tips I have learned in the trenches of dealing with teens to suit the girls that meet me on facebook each and every day. This "scripting" exercise has been a BIG hit, girls are using it and being successful at setting boundaries that stick!

I have been running The Butterfly Girlz Blog which is a place that has newsworthy information on things that apply to teen girls. Every Friday I post a journaling exercise to get the girls who read the page a chance to hash out their thoughts on that subject for the day.

The Butterfly Girlz have also published their own mini-magazine/newsletter. Our first issue, the SUMMER issue came out at the beginning of May. Their writings, journal entries, pics, a write-in advice column and much more grace the pages of Butterfly Landing Magazine. We are open to submissions from teen girls anywhere.

I am planning to start summer workshops for young girls (ages 7-11) and teen girls (12-18). I have some workshops planned out but am open to catering workshops based on the needs of the schools, scout troops, churches inviting  me to speak.

There are so many ideas running through my head for weekend events that girls could  be doing simultaneously across the country but under the umbrella of The Butterfly Girlz! Random Acts of Kindness projects, support for storm ravages states, etc. I plan on having some events for just The Butterfly Girlz this summer where we SKYPE in the girls from other states.

Over the past couple weeks I have had moms ask if I could run programs for them b/c at times they are just at a loss for what to do with their girls or the drama that surrounds them. I have had moms calling in tears asking for advice, moms emailing and facebooking me for help...

I had no idea this was going to take off so quickly and become so HUGE. But I am so thrilled and blessed each and every day when someone "gets it" and I can see the proverbial light bulb click on. These girls are treasures that can not be "blown off" anymore. They have something to say, their problems are real, the media is feeding them CRAP through everyone of their senses. Boys are telling them, "it's ok, just let me show you" and they are falling for it. Girls as young as 12 are having babies, suicide attempts are now trickling down into our elementary schools and I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!

This is my contribution to the next generation and I IMPLORE you to help me spread the word. This book needs an agent and publisher, I need to branch out and speak around the country to groups of girls who are losing grip on the end of their rope. I need to do interviews, I need connections with talk radio stations. I want to save lives, I want to empower girls, I want to DREAM with them, I want them to see their potential. I want them to succeed. I want them to hold onto their butterflies and RISE ABOVE THE MUCK!

Please help me take this around the world.

Thank you for helping me inspire our FUTURE with what I have learned from all the amazing moms in my  life - and yes, that includes you!

THANK YOU!

Bring Your Butterflies

Butterflies are a symbol of beautiful metamorphosis.

Isn't this what we hope for our teen girls?

Something beautiful.

You don't have to spend much time at all surfing the web to find that today's girls feel far less than that.
Yeah, they put on a good show but they are crushed, broken and desperate.

What they are most desperate for is self-respect. Sure, they all want love and they think they want it from another person. What they aren't developmentally capable of seeing, though, is that self-respect is directly translated to our heart as LOVE. We can't love someone else unless we love ourselves first. We can't love ourselves unless we respect ourselves. We can't respect ourselves if we continue looking in the wrong places for love. Girls search and search for this love and sadly give themselves away as a means to win someone's love.

They think this other person's "love" will fill the gaping hole they are well-aware is present in their soul. And each time they give themselves away in hope of filling that ache, the hole gets bigger. So they have to look harder but still they are looking OUT instead of IN.

I was inspired today as I sat in Panera with a steaming breadbowl full of tomato soup and my fresh lemon-ed Diet Pepsi.

Self-respect is your God-given right. You have it. But you have to decide to keep it.

It was a part of you as you formed in your mother’s womb. It is yours. But you have to hang onto it or someone can take pieces of it from you. You can get those pieces back but it’s not an easy task.

Self-respect is like a bag of butterflies.

If someone handed you a bag filled with the earth’s most beautiful butterflies and you didn’t guard them to the best of your ability, they would fly away one by one. Sure, you could get them back but it would take a lot of work and a very long time. And you may just choose to make do without them and live with the regret.

I want teen girls to protect that bag of butterflies. I want them to work to keep them in the bag and not let anyone steal with they were given.

Difficult task?
Abso-freakin'-lutely!

But can they do it?
Without a doubt!

Have faith in your teen girls. Help them hang on to their self-respect.

That's the purpose of my book.
And my prayer is to one day be speaking to seas of teen girls as the author of this book. I want to inspire them to "Bring [their] Butterflies!"

Peace out, Mamas!
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