I’ve struggled with how to introduce myself. With humor? With gut-wrenching honesty? How about a little bit of both.  

You can see from the picture I’m a blue-eyed Southerner. I never knew I had a southern drawl, until I lived in New York City, and couldn’t say “Good Morning” without someone asking if I was from Texas (which is a twang, not a drawl), Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, or Georgia. 

Like E. F. Hutton, when we talk, people listen. (Or, at least, we think you do!) 

We take a five-minute story and turn it into a half-hour, spellbinding, sit-on-the-end-of-your-chair tale that leaves you exhausted and ready for a glass of our finest sweet tea. We really can’t help it. We feel a compulsion to entertain with a purpose.  

If it will help you feel better, we’ll share the intimate details of our lives. (Most of us are open books, just waiting to be read.) We’ll help you find reasons to keep on keeping on, no matter how much your heart is aching. 

I do believe that’s the reason why I’m doing this at this time in my life. I’ve lived long enough to have gone through enough to have learned enough that I might be able to keep you from feeling that enough is enough. (Only a true Southerner could have written that sentence.) 

I’ll share lessons I’ve learned the hard way, the easy way and the ugly way. 

For me, life began in a playpen in the back corner booth of the “Help Yourself” diner in the town of Vicksburg while Mother worked us out of poverty. 

Today, I’m GG to seven, from six to eighteen. I’m married to a terribly handsome man with a remarkably kind heart. It took a lot to get here. Much more than I can tell in one sitting. Hang around long enough and you might just hear the whole story. 

I hope I can make you feel better about life, love, parenting and being a woman, ‘cause I really do want to bless your heart. 

With a nod to my most favored biblical heroine, Esther, 

For such a time as this,
Jill

P.S. Here’s all that other stuff you probably want to know about me.