My name is Miss Lori and I’m a MOM; A Merrily Optimistic Multi-Tasker, who when life hits her square between the eyes can flip over and become “A Weary Overwhelmed Woman,” (W.O.W.). I’m a real Miss Lori, I don’t just play one on TV. (I have a purse full of fruit snacks and autograph cards to prove it!) I live a very surreal life, equal parts glamor and soot, but always very real. My career is in entertainment. I perform live all over the country, and I also appear on television. In addition I leverage my celebrity to strengthen bonds between brands and consumers using my own design of “Marketainment”. At the same time I’m the mother of 3 beautiful children grappling with a failed economy and a flawed marriage. Some days have started standing in line at the Department of Health and Social Services, and ended dipping chocolate covered strawberries in champagne with fellow bloggers and brand reps. It can make my head spin. But no matter the situation I always aim to address life with a SMILE. That’s a big part of what I am known for, my SMILE. SMILES are powerful and very contagious. I’m proud of the joy and empowerment that I cultivate with my work both online and IRL one smile at a time. [Read more...]
Miss Lori is a cell phone wireless plan Free Agent, let the bidding begin!
 Phones! Phones! Phones! They really seem to rule my life these days. My cell phone bill is one of the largest bills I pay each month outside of my mortgage. Yikes! What does that mean exactly? It means I am ruled by my wireless company. I am at their mercy, or at least I have been for the last two years. However, right now I am at a wonderful crossroads. Every one of my family’s phones are off contract. Oh yes! That means I am a FREE AGENT! (Look out Lebron!) Now my children each have a very strong opinion about what they want me to do. All of their suggestions are fueled by the images of dancing smart phones in their heads. (However, I don’t believe that children should have internet access on their phones. I don’t mind if they have the ability to tap into their facebook accounts, but that’s it.) Nevertheless, I need to take a more fiscally responsible approach. (Although I wouldn’t mind a dancing smart phone myself!). [Read more...] |
Miss Lori has a gut feeling about Maxine Clark and St Louis, MO.
Do you believe in fate? I have to admit that I have wanted to, but my life hasn’t really rolled along like that. However, I do believe in gut instinct. Although, truth be told I believe it to be a muscle that you have to learn to exercise properly. I have always had “feelings,” but I haven’t always known how to listen to them, or to act upon them. This year I have had a recurring notion happening in my life. (Well, I have had a lot of them, but only one appears to be particularly positive.) Wait, I should back up to the beginning…last year.
My daughter has been struggling with an illness for a while now, but she has yet to be diagnosed. She has an enlarged pancreas but no one can seem to figure out why. It’s been excruciating emotionally, watching her struggle so. Particularly during the holidays last year. What made it worse was that with the piling up of medical bills money was really tight. For my beautiful daughter the one wish I had for her, beyond having her get better, was to be able to take her to Disney World. I wished it deep in my bones. I spoke it every night. I told the World. I put it out there, even though I had no possible way of fulfilling such a dream. Well, that is until I got a fateful email from Disney inviting me to be a part of the first Disney Social Media Moms Conference. And just like that a dream was fulfilled. Okay, but this is where the fate thing starts actually. (And you thought this was just going to be about my daughter? Who by the way is doing, better but still hasn’t been diagnosed and still suffers daily.) While attending the #Disneysmmoms conference I had the unique opportunity to not only meet, but hear an absolutely phenomenal woman speak. Maxine Clark, CEO of Build a Bear Workshop. Listening to her story, to her ideas about children, and community, and responsibility, and friendship… well I fell in love right then and there. No, I’m serious I started drawing her name in my notebook with little hearts around it. (Wait, strike that. I don’t want to get arrested for stalking). Okay, but it’s true that I was absolutely enamored. The little voice inside of me said, You are going to work with this woman!” Well, actually it wasn’t just the little voice inside of me, it was the big voice outside of me too. Because I told Maxine plainly that I absolutely wanted to work with her somehow, someway. I wrote about it, I tweeted it, I updated my facebook status about it. Well heck, I had such great success giving my dream up to the universe before, why stop now. [Read more...]
Miss Lori passes on a recipe for success she got from her mother
Last year I published a Mother’s Day recipe in tribute to my Mother. This year I publish it again because tributes are worth repeating.
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO ALL!
SMILE On!
ML
When I was growing up my Mother used to make Brownies with Wheat Germ. She said it was her job to slip in the good stuff when we weren’t looking. The thing is the brownies didn’t taste that much different, but as kids we always over reacted to change, even just the thought of it. But I got used to her ways and grew to really appreciate them. Another specialty of hers was Mama Muffins filled with nutrients. She would send them in care packages to me at college, and my classmates would line up in anticipation of their arrival. Eureka! Now I am the parent. I must admit I am not much of a baker, but I still try and employ my mother’s loving philosophy.
Miss Lori is found on facebook by her birth family
Do you believe in fate. I used to believe strongly that everything happened for a reason. hen some really unexplainable things happened and I kid of fell off the bandwagon. But I still wonder about fate. Never more than now though.
I met Maxine Clark, CEO of Build a Bear Workshop last month at the Disney Social Media Moms conference. We really connected about children. (Big surprise). I then had the great fortune to converse with her by email when I returned home. She and I were bandying about an idea for me to work with her and her husband on a project that they have going in their home town of St. Louis , Missouri. the are working to help young people be healthier. You know that subject is near and dear to my heart. Maxine wanted to know if St Louis was on m radar. I told her that I don’t currently have St Louis on my tour schedule. So we agreed to keep talking till we found the right time to get me there.
The very next day I got a Facebook message…from my sister. No, not the two I have known my whole life, my birth father’s youngest daughter,…my sister. You see, I am adopted. I have known that I was adopted for as long as I have known my name. But this information was an out of the blue smack in the head. My… sister was messaging me because her.. (our) father had passed away the Saturday before, and she wanted me to know about it.( I had to sit down because my head started to spin.) [Read more...]
Chuck Holton, a quiet National hero disguised in Daddy clothing
When I was growing up we did a few projects at school where they would ask you to name what you parents did for a living. Answering about my Mom was easy, she was a therapist. I always new that. Heck anyone could figure that out just by talking to her for 5 minutes because invariably you would start telling her your life story. She just has that way about her. But my father, well that was a little more difficult. You see, what I knew about my father’s job was that he got up and went to work early in the morning, and came home fairly regularly around 530 at night. Usually I only saw him fleetingly for dinner just before I would rush out the door with my mother and sister to an evening dance class or rehearsal. But nevertheless I did have an answer for people who asked what my father did. He gave away the free cheese! See in Wisconsin there was this program that gave away free cheese to people in need. And though I didn’t know much else about my father’s job, I did know that he had something to do with that program. As I got older I finally got a real title for my father. He was the Regional Director for Health and Social Services for the State of Wisconsin. I still didn’t know exactly what that meant, but it was a great title!
That was his present while I was growing up. His past was something a little more colorful, but truthfully still elusive. From 1952-58 my father was a Harlem Globetrotter. Yes, you heard me right. He was a Harlem Globetrotter. And the only reason I have the dates down pat was because he had this award from the organization that hung in our house and it had the dates in raised characters on the front. I memorized them. I had to, because that was about as much detail as I ever really got about his experience. It’s not his fault totally. I don’t remember if I have ever really asked for detailed memories, I’m embarrassed to say. Amazing how we take the people close to us for granted. Their histories.
Last week I learned something more about my father that I didn’t know. Not from him, but from a newspaper article. [Read more...]
Miss Lori wants to be the next Mamavation weight-loss success story
I have two major resolutions for 2010. My first is to eradicate fear in my life. My second is to regain control over my body. I am tackling both with this latest venture. With this post I am officially throwing my hat into the ring for the latest Mamavation weight-loss campaign. I am equally terrified and excited about this move. The campaign is AWESOME, and has proven results. I have not been very successful, since the birth of my third child, with regaining some balance with my weight. I have come to the realization that I need help. That is why I am reaching out to the fantastic Mamavation team to attain my goal; a happier, healthier life.
Miss Lori’s Christmas miracle, READING!
My own little Christmas miracle. As I sat holding my youngest in church last night I was a little overcome with emotion. It wasn’t just the soulful music from the choir, or the spirit of the holiday, it was really about the little girl sitting in my lap, and the journey that she bravely traveled this last year. I am so in awe of her strength, her resolve and her perserverence, despite all that was hurled at her. Through it all she has remained a sparkling, vivacious spirit that lights my soul.
My daughter Jaedyn started getting ill in November of 2008. We had no idea what was happening to her. Her teachers noticed it at first, the dimming of her energy. They brought it to our attention, saying Jaedyn, just wasn’t acting like Jaedyn. If you had ever met jC before November of 2008 you would know exactly what they meant. But to those who hadn’t met her, like the new doctors we went to see, JC looked like a perfectly healthy and energetic 5 year old. They didn’t realize that they were only seeing her at half mast.
Miss Lori says, “Happy Thanksgiving!”
Miss Lori is proud to be adopted!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWzahZarxmY
Today is National Adoption Day, a center piece of Adoption Awareness Month. This is very special to me because I am adopted. I was adopted as an infant in Milwaukee Wisconsin, 1970. I have always known that I was adopted. (However, ironically only last year did I discover that I was in a foster home for the first 5 weeks of my life!) My parents told me that being adopted made me special. I took that to heart and have always been very thankful for my good fortune. It was good fortune, because in 1970 children of mixed race were considered hard to place. (My father joked that he adopted my sister and I with a coupon!) Coincidentally my adoptive parents are a mixed race couple too. My father is black and my mother is white, just as my birth parents are. When I was 8, as is typical with kids at that age, I was curious about my personal history. So, my parents contacted my social worker and got me my adoptive “non-identifying information”. The pages told me that I was a single birth of a mother with the ethnic breakdown of Norwegian, Swedish, and German. There wasn’t a lot of information about my birth father except that he had some tall brother’s and played sports. The big news was that I had a birth name…Kristianna. Now that was surreal. My background changed from a blank page to a pencil sketch. It was satisfying. I was quite content. I didn’t want for more info. I had my parents, and I was fairly sure of who I was. There weren’t any real holes to be attended to.
Fast forward to age 18.
