October Wickedly Awesome Blog Award: La Belle Mere

I'm excited to announce the October recipient of the Wickedly Awesome Blog Award is none other than Miss Rebecca Lippett of La Belle Mere fame.

I introduced the Wickedly Awesome blog award back in late August as a way for me to say "hey, I think your blog looks wickedly cool. From a post perspective, look, feel, making readers feel welcome...you deserve to be noticed for that." And so, I created the award all by my little self.

I consider this month's recepient the Bridget Jones of Stepmotherhood. Where Bridget may have had her diary, Becks has her blog.

Rebecca writes with fun, brutal honesty about her life as a Stepmum. From her purple ass to her no-apologies stance on being a childless woman and a new stepmum, she catalogs her life with such humor and honesty that you really, really, really want to live next door to her just so you can sit down in her kitchen and chat.

And her blog....it's just wickedly cool. She's got a great cartoon of herself as well as a lot of fun widgets that I find myself wanting to borrow for my own blog :-).

So, without further adieu, I bring you the short interview with Miss LBM...


Can you describe your blog/site?
Wow, how do I describe my blog? Umm… well, it changes day to day depending on where my head’s at usually! It’s a mix of humor, ranting, serious steppy articles, musing and sometimes plain drivel actually. It’s geared toward stepmothers but I have lots of non-steppy followers to. There is a forum on the site and a live chat room for stepmums to air their views.

Tell us about your stepfamily structure (number of stepkids; any bio-kids; martial status and how long have you known each other).
Well my martial status, if you’re interested, is that I used to be a brown belt kickboxer but haven’t done it for years. I’m also an earthling. I’m guessing you may want to know my marital status to? That would be married – for a just under a year. Got married in Nov 08 but have known him for 3 years. I have 2 step children – one is bio to my husband the other is his non-bio step-son. We have them every other weekend and Monday nights after school.
(oops, my bad about the marital v. martial . You'd never know that during the day I'm an EDITOR)

How long have you been blogging?
Well surprisingly only since the end of June this year but it feels like I’ve been doing it FOREVER!

What prompted you to start a blog?
I got interested in blogging when I joined StepChicks and started reading what other people were blogging on the site. I visited some of the links to other stepmum blogs and thought they were excellent. I thought it would be a very therapeutic thing to do!

Did your blog evolve into a Stepmom blog or start out as a Stepmom blog?
It started as a sort of online Stepmother diary to air my frustrations but I enjoyed it so much it quickly became a more humorous look at all things Stepmother and beyond really.

What do you find the most challenging about being a Stepmom blogger?
Sometimes it can be very scary to blog about my emotions on an open forum. It started as an anonymous blog but, due to a Facebook slip up (flippin technology! Meh!) it became public knowledge! Now both my family and my husband's family and many of my friends now read the blog so some days I do worry that I’m going to upset someone, or what they might think of me as a result of what I’ve written. I also worry about whether or not the Bio-Hazard knows about the blog and what she might think about being referred to as “Bio-Hazard”!! It is meant as a joke but if it were the other way around I’d be unhappy about being ridiculed on the internet so I do have pangs of guilt about that! I try to be understanding and diplomatic but if I’m having a bad day it can get a bit “ranty”!

What do you find the most challenging about being a Stepmom in general?
The hardest thing for me has been the emotional side – coming to terms with unexpected and negative emotions that came up in me. Before becoming a stepmum I’d always thought of myself as a fairly reasonable and level headed person but this new situation has tested my emotional capacity! I’m not a jealous person usually but I’ve struggled with sharing my husband and new family with the ex. I’m also not really a kiddy person so I find the noise and mess quite stressful when they are with us! I’ve worked through feelings of jealousy, resentment, anger, guilt, fear, loss and sadness that have all come up as a result of this experience. Some days I deal with it, others I don’t, it’s a constant challenge!

Who designed your blog and would you recommend them again?
Yeah definitely. She’s a fellow Stepmother and Brit. She blogs at www.kimmythingy.blogspot.com Her web design page is at www.delightfullydesigned.com/
The general maintenance and layout I do myself.

Favorite social networking tool? (i.e., Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed?)
Oh crikey, there are so many that I find it hard to keep up! I mostly use Facebook and Twitter, but there are also a number of Ning networks that I use Stepchicks, Thirty Something Bloggers, She Writes and, my baby, Child Free Chicks. It’s a tough call between Facebook and Twitter but I’m gonna say…… Facebook. No Twitter!.... no actually, Facebook.