Hi. I’m Nic and this is my blog.

I am a 29 year old freelancing writer and unpublished author in the making. Married to my polar opposite, Paul, my 6’6″ Navy pilot husband tolerates my insanity and occasionally tells me he loves me all the more for it. Together, we made our son, Jackson Ray, more commonly referred to as “the magoo.”

We currently reside in Annapolis, Maryland, on the 3rd floor of an apartment complex that is not suitable for our 85 lb labrador retriever, Red, who has most recently acquired the skill of licking his ass.

I do not recommend apartment living for families, especially those with a large breed dog.

I am a passionate writer, a tattooed liberal, and a non-sophisticated wino.

In my former life I was an English teacher. My undergrad is in English Literature and I have a Masters in Secondary Education. Currently I use neither of these degrees to my advantage. And no, I do not miss teaching, nor do I plan on returning to it someday.

When I wasn’t teaching, I worked for a nonprofit center as a rape victim advocate.

I am a rape survivor.

When I am not wiping the magoo’s ass, telling Red to stop licking his ass, or asking my husband to bring home more wine because of all the assness, I am writing a book. This book is the story of my survival as a rape victim 9 years ago and chronicles my survivorship that has brought me where I am today. I have tattoos… 5 to be exact. Each tattoo represents a part of the process I have gone through in order to not only survive, but to thrive as a rape survivor. Each piece of art that has been etched in to my skin with an ink-filled needle celebrates my once violated body. I am unashamed.

You can find my story here, published at Violence Unsilenced.

Somewhat new to the blogosphere and social media in general, I started this blog with my family as my only audience, writing about my pregnancy with the magoo in 2007. At that time, Paul was given orders by the Navy that our family would be moving to Japan. I started a blog as a way to begin communicating with our family that would soon be on the other side of the world from us. Webcams were bought, etc… Feel free to dig through the “wine cellar,” the archives of my uneventfully awesome pregnancy.

Having a fantastic pregnancy led to absolute chaos during my first 6 months of motherhood. Karma is a bitch sometimes. Jackson was born allergic to my breast milk. After subjecting myself to every possible elimination diet I could in order to nurse my son, then putting him through numerous tests, eventually hospitalizing him twice, Paul and I spent 8 weeks feeding Jackson through an NG tube with the possibility of a G tube surgery taking place. It was at that point in time when my blog turned into what it is today.

My bottle was up… both literally and figuratively speaking. Our son refused his bottle to the point of weight loss and dehydration. My wine bottle was up many-a-night as I cried and researched online, joined discussion forums, contacted pediatric specialists looking for an answer. And figuratively speaking, our bottle was up in terms of time and patience. Paul and I were at our wits end for months while trying to feed our son.

My blog became my lifeline as I connected with and corresponded with other parents of children with severe food allergies and disorders. I researched clinics online that specialized in pediatric feeding disorders, which is what ultimately led the Navy to show us mercy and change Paul’s orders from sending us to Japan to sending us here, Annapolis. Jackson was treated at Johns Hopkins, Kennedy Krieger feeding program.

He now eats like a champ. Somedays…

With the exception of this “about” page, I prefer to write using all lowercase letters. I’m lazy like that. I enjoy watching my husband tickle the magoo til the both of them are covered in slobber, dabbling in photography, traveling on airplanes that have WiFi, drinking wine and getting my husband’s expert opinion about beer. I am also a Top Chef fanatic and in my next life I would like to be reborn as a food critic… that way when my bottle is up, it’ll be an expensive bottle that I won’t have to pay for.

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