About Me

Greetings and salutations! My name is Frema. Well, not really, but that's what my college friends call me, so Frema it is. And what you're lookin' at just happens to be me.

Originally from Chicago (South Side!), I live in central Indiana with my husband, Luke, my daughter, Kara, who was born in December 2007, and my son, Nathan, showed up thirteen months later in January 2009. What do you call that, stair-stepper children? Egads. Anyway, I work full-time in communications for a drug-testing lab while Luke stays home with the kids. (Yes, we are all kinds of progressive.) I started blogging in 2004 as an on-going assigment for an autobiography course I took in grad school and loved it so much that I registered for a Blogger account. I've been blogging ever since.

I write about any number of things--my job (surface-level only, of course), my husband, my kids, being a parent, my on-going relationship with health and exercise, money and household budgeting, religion, and nerdy things like Lionel Richie and Sweet Valley High. I have a zillion categories to help readers navigate through various topics, but if you're new, some of them won't make sense to you. Here are a few that require more explanation:

Weight Loss Wednesday: An on-going record of my progress with healthy eating and the scale. I'm still determined to drop some weight, but forcing myself into weekly updates isn't the way to do it. Posting my number four times a month was supposed to embarrass me into healthy living; instead, it just embarrassed me. Time to try something new.

Tragic Love Friday: The online record of Love, Betrayal and a Baby, a baby-momma drama I wrote in high school. I began sharing the fruits of my teenage labor during NaBloPoMo in 2006, complete with commentary on lil' Frema's writing style, and finished posting the sequel in August 2007. Initially, there was talk of a reader-centric Part III, but when push came to shove, the bulk of the writing fell on my shoulders, and I never found the time. I collected tons of ideas, though, so there's a good chance I'll do more with this one day. Just not today.

(For an Idiot's Guide to part one provided by my fabulous TLF readers, click here. For a synopsis of part two, click here.)

Parental Discretion Advised: From July 2007 to August 2009, I wrote a blog called (what else) "Parental Discretion Advised" for Parents.com, posting three times a week about my experience with pregnancy and new motherhood. I started the blog when I was in the second trimester with Kara; by the time it ended, Kara was almost two and Nathan was seven months. The Powers That Be allowed me to republish a select number of entries on my personal blog; that's what you'll find here. The time stamps reflect the original posting date.

It was extremely difficult keeping up with this blog and that one, so when you come across gaping holes in my personal archives, it's because I saved all my blog juice for Parents and had nothing left to post here. I'm grateful I had the opportunity to write for such a popular Web site, but I also appreciate being able to house all my bloggy-type ramblings in one place again.

I love All My Children, young adult fiction from my childhood, pens, spinach dip, "your mom" jokes, Archie comics, ice cream, cheesy love songs, personal finance and "you go, girl" advice from Suze Orman, fitness videos featuring Jillian Michaels, making sense of Tori Amos lyrics, coffee, the color green, Peace Frog pajama gear, Lost, and most of NBC's Thursday night line-up. I'm easily confused by sex, politics, and America's obsession with So You Think You Can Dance. I hate seafood. One day, I want to visit Italy.

To get a better feel for how I roll, check out my 100 things list. Even though it's more than four years old. Whoops.

You've been sufficiently warned.