I had the opportunity to meet Annie of Hot Fruita Moms acclaim this week. I actually approached her to be one of the contributing writers for my Denver Post project and she eagerly jumped onboard. Or overboard. Stay tuned for the outcome.
She is the first person I’ve met through my online/blogging pursuits. Well, unless you count my hubby and you all know how that turned out. But Annie and I had a grand time hashing about our project, husbands, kids, life, etc. She is beautiful, energetic,vivacious and every bit as funny in person.
Annie brought her daughter along to play with Hadley. Even though she’s a few years older, they had a grand time tearing up our backyard and playing in our mucky sandbox. At one point, Haddie squealed for me to come see what her new friend taught her, which involved climbing onto the back of one of our patio chairs and precipitously hanging on the outside of our play structure before fearlessly scaling it.
Annie about had a heart attack when she saw Hadley’s attempts but I assured her this was much better than the back flip she did off the couch last week. The poor woman is obviously not accustomed to life with a Hurricane.
Prior to Annie’s Denver visit, she mentioned she was going to meet me on her blog and asked if anyone had any questions for me. Like I’m some kind of celebrity, of course. And much to my shock, a few folks obliged.
1) Q: Thoroughly Mormon Millie asked about my days in radio.
A: Though the brunt of my career was in print and as a publicist, I did two different stints on the radio. The first at the very beginning and quite appropriately, also at the end. My first job out of college was as an intern for SkiUtah, the PR/marketing end of Utah’s ski industry. Through that, I landed the position as their snow reporter on all the radio stations. When I took the job, the reports were blase and boring. I mean, how exciting can snow totals be?
And that is when I created the Craaaaaazy Canuck Snow Reporter. I made every report energetic, fun and had a different sign-off everyday. I was amazed how well received I was just for putting in a little bit of effort. I had a blast, had more ski days than I could count, made special appearances and now have the impressive resume of how to say “skiing is cool” in 100 different ways.
At the end of my career, I freelanced for Metro News, one of 60 nation-wide bureaus. I worked during the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympics and did everything from filling in as the News Director to voicing the on-air traffic and news reports.
The absolute worst was when I was the Traffic Producer. We had a special drop-down box for road conditions and during a particularly early (and perfectly clear) morning, I accidentally clicked on “Foggy conditions” instead of “Freeway speeds.” Close enough, right? What I’m saying is just don’t trust everything you hear on those reports. Or when I’m in charge, don’t trust anything….
2) Q: The other question that was posed: are they real? My curls, that is. A: The answer is mostly yes. I always had straight hair until puberty. And then when most girls were blossoming bosoms, I got dreadlocks. These days, I get my hair permed once a decade. Just because the heavenly scent of those perm solutions is a natural high.
And as for the other are they real question that was never posed but that I am sure you’re all wondering: yes, they’re real, too. Though I guess there is a reason why I’ve never been asked that question by anyone who has met me….
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 