welcome new fantasy-to-do-list-makers! you never know what will come of our little game.

perhaps secret agent mom will publish a book. maybe stacy and her husband will open that restaurant. lane just might play bass in a band! megan could be on her way to fluency in american sign language. hiking and camping in yosemite could be in katherine’s near future. kathi could begin to incorporate daily meditation into her life. jessa might soon be found “riding allovercreation” on her new bike with kid attachments. we might see lindsey’s name on a campaign sign in the next few years. reverendmother could perfect her signature dish when she’s not traveling far and wide. i’m hoping that melissa will open that candy store on south main. jaime and i can go there to celebrate when she gets her first hole-in-one! then, to burn off those extra candy calories, i can go with emmy to her first spin class.

it’s not too late to make your own list! see this post for details.

first name: Stacey

age: 37, soon to be 38

current city:  Memphis

living situation: Husband Warren Oster, sons Satchel (7) and Jiro (5)

occupation: I work in Community Relations at Memphis Light Gas and Water, but most people think I make a living as a freelance writer.

how do you structure your time and space? I have a basic 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. job, but I have the option of a compressed work week (four ten hour days). I prefer the four day week, but I can’t always make it work. My husband is an archaeologist and a full-time student getting his masters in Elementary Education. He actually has a much more flexible work life/schedule than I do. He ends up taking the kids to work with him or staying home with them if they are sick, he shuttles our younger child to four speech therapy classes every week, et cetera. He also does the bulk of grocery shopping and cooking! This allows me to get my work done at the office and then have time to do interviews, and related work for all of the freelance writing assignments I take on. I used to stay up really late at night (like 1 a.m.) getting everything done, but six months ago I started getting up at 5:30 a.m. to work out. Now I’m lucky if I can stay up past 10 p.m.! Most of the freelance work I do (as well as special projects like Rock-n-Romp) involve my kids. This, along with my husband’s awesomeness, is the only way I can fit in extracurricular activities.

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? I think I’m stuck in spring, which I guess is a good place to be. For instance, if you ask me what the date is, I automatically think it is March 26. Isn’t that weird? It’s the day my dad died and also the day Warren and I decided to get married, so it’s kind of a pivotal day, but still, I’m mentally stuck there. Luckily spring is a time of renewal and I seem to always feel like the possibilities are endless and the future is bright.

-what season(s) preceded this one? Winter, maybe? I feel like I was hibernating most of my life, waiting for my big awakening.

-what season(s) might your future hold? I suppose someday there will be an autumn for me, a time to rest and enjoy all of the pretty colors. 

favorite family activities: We love going out to eat, which is evidenced by my Dining with Monkeys blog. We’ve covered about 200 restaurants and are always on the lookout for new places to try. Also a week doesn’t pass that we don’t go hike in the Old Forest of Overton Park. When it’s nice outside, we like to ride our bikes/roller skate/skateboard around town. Swimming at the Memphis Jewish Community Center is another big summertime activity for us. We never miss a Rock-n-Romp. Team Oster (that’s what we call ourselves) also loves a good road trip.

favorite solo activities: I really like my 5:30am workouts, but I don’t do them alone. I have an awesome workout partner, Ashley Harper. Every Tuesday I have roller derby practice (I’m a referee now after skating for two years) followed by drinks at the Cove. It’s one of the highlights of my week. My only truly solo activity would be writing, which I do every single day in some form, even if it’s just for a few minutes.

sources of inspiration: Definitely my kids. 100%. They provide me with never-ending subject matter!

best MakeShift moment: The Hot Pink Paper Clips were scheduled to play Rock-n-Romp last August. The band is composed of four middle school girls. They had been practicing all week in preparation for the show, for which they were SO excited, but three out of four of them came down with the swine flu and had to cancel the night before the show. I remembered that my husband’s boss’s son was in a band at White Station High School, but I wasn’t sure if they were any good. I called my husband’s boss and ran the idea by him. He made some calls and by 9:00 on Friday night we had the Theoretical Monkeys scheduled to play at 3:00 the next afternoon. Luckily, they turned out to be really good. (And they were absolutely darling!) My husband’s boss was especially thrilled, and things really couldn’t have turned out better. The Hot Pink Paper Clips returned to health and played our November show.

find stacey on the web at: 

• www.fertilegroundzine.com
• www.diningwithmonkeys.com
• www.memphisrocknromp.blogspot.com
• www.overtonparkforever.org