It wasn’t my intention to become a mom. I wasn’t one of those girls who played with baby dolls and dreamed of her future motherhood. A favorite childhood game I played with the neighborhood kids was office, and my role models were Mary Tyler Moore throwing her beret in the air, and Marlo Thomas as that girl living a single-lady life independently.
Read MoreAnnie stands quietly in the bright afternoon sun, lights a joint outside the majestic wooden doors of the St. Catherine of Genoa Parish, and feels the coolness of the butter-yellow bricks against her neck when she leans back. She’s shaken by feeling so close to him again. “Shit,” she says with a long exhale of smoke, “I can do this.”
Annie breathes in deep and holds the smoke in her lungs until she can hold it no longer. As she exhales Annie begins to feel the anxiety move out of her body. She’s grateful her mom welcomed her back so easily, but it didn’t come without strings. Annie thinks that maybe this is how it’s supposed to feel to come home to a place she hardly knows.
The cannabis lifts her mood and the day suddenly glows with clarity and possibilities. “God I love a good joint,” she says to herself before taking one last inhale and crushing the ashy tip lightly against the metal railing running along the wide concrete staircase. Annie turns her head slightly to look up at the church steeple and notices the small white clouds floating above the church.
Read MoreToday I’m sitting with Sunny, my seventeen-year-old pup, who is like the Edith Wharton quote – “My little dog – a heartbeat at my feet,” a sentiment captured by a friend who came to the park one morning and photographed all the dogs and then created lovely cards with a special quote for each one.
The story of Sunny is one of good luck and great fortune because when she arrived in our home, when my son was nine and my daughter was seven, she had been found abandoned, abused and also pregnant, but was saved to give birth and find a new home.
Read MoreWhat I’ve learned from both podcasting, cannabis and motherhood, is the importance of the pause.
Podcasting requires it; cannabis allows it; and motherhood is better when we stop and pay attention to the people we love.
Read MoreI like being a small influencer who can support the amplification of the positive deviant, the canna moms breaking barriers, building businesses and crushing the stigma around cannabis and caregivers. It’s been a long journey matchmaking my skills, interests and abilities with a job that inspires me every day. Turns out I’m a pretty good podcaster because although I like talking with people, I prefer to listen. By listening I’m learning that there are many solutions to the problems we are facing, and talking with smart people on the podcast makes me hopeful.
Read MoreGuest Blogger - Bertha Garratt
One of the best things about these products is their incredible anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. My skin feels softer and more supple since I started using them, and I have noticed a reduction in breakouts. Furthermore, it has reduced the itchiness I experience because of my skin condition.
Read MoreThere is definitely a movement of young people who can influence the future of cannabis in this country, but we, the canna moms, will be the ones to get the job done. Canna moms are gutsy and on the front lines in different spaces and when we find alignment we are a force to be reckoned with. We belong in every space and we bring our people with us, so today I’m asking for your help. With Season 4 launching on October 6th can you help us be heard so the world knows The Canna Mom Show is still sharing the stories of the women building this industry? Our actions together can help these important stories be heard.
Read MoreAs a young woman who lives between two states that didn’t skip a beat in criminalizing abortion, it makes me sad and scared, but it does not discourage me. In fact, it fuels the fight instilled in me by the women who came before me and who fought for me. It fuels me to fight for them.
Read MoreSince the leak of the Supreme Court’s intention to abandon the bodily autonomy women have fought generations to attain, I’ve been living in a haze of red rage. It feels like we’re all a bit stunned by the expectation that having a vagina and uterus should determine a human’s destiny in 2022.
Read MoreIf you care about these stories and hope to create a future improved by the women in cannabis then I’m asking for your support of the Keep The Canna Mom Conversation Going campaign. And with gratitude I thank you for choosing to join us in creating Season 4, so that together we can elevate the stories of the women building the emerging cannabis industry and crush the stigma around cannabis and caregivers.
Read MoreThat is why I am overjoyed to announce The Canna Mom Show is planning a Season 4! And we are asking our community for help. If you want to hear cannabis stories from the secular to the sacred on how it heals, enhances and elevates the lives of moms from coast to coast and around the world, you can. On May 1st we are launching our first Keep The Canna Mom Conversation Going Crowdfunding Campaign where your financial gift will be rewarded with some great canna mom swag or a signed copy of the #1 Best Selling Courage in Cannabis or other canna experiences you are going to love. I hope you will join us so that together we can continue building this new world for mothers and cannabis and crush the stigma around cannabis and caregiving.
Read MoreThere are times for persistence and I feel like this past year has tested this in all of us. But there are also times for resets to renew our purpose and build our reserve. The Canna Mom Show is taking a summer break because I need a reset. But I’ll still be talking about cannabis this summer with my friends Dori Wile of Half Baked Housewives and CBD educator Amy Chin, together we will be three canna moms illuminating the way on Clubhouse in the Reset for Women club. We will be talking about how to choose the best CBD products; why cannabis is good for moms; how to use cannabis during menopause and so much more.
Read MoreStaying youthful is an endeavor for the ages, but it doesn’t need to be. That’s because attributes associated with youth are tied to sleep. If you sleep well, you’ll feel and look better—no matter your age.
Just pause and think about it. A newborn doesn’t sleep through the night and neither do you. How do you look and feel after a few days? You can’t sleep, worrying about balancing the demands of work and your kid being left out of playdates. As your child moves from one phase to the next, the stress of parenting doesn’t decrease (think mean girls, bullies and the college application process) but we adapt. It starts to feel normal but shouldn’t.
Read MoreNow, either my mom listened to mine incessantly or more likely the latter which was – I shared the shit out of my aired interview on The Canna Mom Show because I NEEDED to win the grand prize. A homemade, colourful, one of a kind, Bong Quilt. Yes, a Bong for Mom contest was well underway with the winner to be announced on Mothers Day. This of course, a nail-biting announcement that I watched glued to FB live while Joyce delivered the winning news to all of the participating guests. It was a close race and I don’t recall the final numbers because I heard one thing only which was, that Bong for Mom Quilt was about to travel outside of the Country to its new home, with me!
Read MoreSocial media is not a place I like to spend my time. In all honestly, too much time on it makes me feel nauseous. And I hate to admit that, despite my wisdom and age, if I don’t get enough likes I feel badly. Crushing one’s self-esteem feels like an unnecessary trade-off to find community in the virtual world during a pandemic. But how are we supposed to connect to real people when we can’t leave our house?
We can listen. That is the genius of Clubhouse – and my new afternoon obsession.
Read MoreIt’s often said that the future is female and with the way we started 2021, it’s safe to say that might just be true. From the first female Vice President in United States history taking office to leading the race in developing a COVID-19 vaccine, women are making their mark. But what does that mean for the cannabis industry?
Read MoreI watch the butter-yellow sun descend behind the shadowed houses against the pastel sky. I sit and think about the chaos and disruption brought to us in 2020. The waving branches block the light partially, momentarily creating an eerie sense of the light being gone. I strain to see the last glowing beam, alit in the sky like the flickering hemp wick held above the bong I’m about to smoke. It’s late afternoon as the dark descends, but I’m calm and listening to the world outside my office window. A cold breeze startles me from my dreamy thoughts and I shudder. I’m a dreamer and the world needs dreams in the darkness, but dreaming doesn’t pay the bills.
Read MoreWhat do you see when you close your eyes? Lately, I see colors in clouds that seem to represent my emotions. Reds and oranges on my sad angry days and blues with swirling grays when life feels too hard. I used to think only in words. I’m a writer and a podcaster, words are important to me.
Read MoreIn 2013 I ran for a local political position with the campaign promise to serve my community by focusing my energies on art, academics and family engagement in our public schools. I lost. But after this year’s tumultuous and historic American election season I began thinking what my political priorities would be today. Cannabis, of course, because as a freedom loving American I don’t believe the government has (or had) the right to criminalize a plant. That alone would make my candidacy unique.
Read MoreThe idea that only the biggest will survive in this industry - depriving the middle of the generational wealth this industry should produce - must be fought. I refuse the see the world through the eyes of those people who believe they are the best, and ask that we are allowed to use our imaginations to create a different type of business created by and for women where we have a place and don’t have to twist ourselves to fit a view of who we should be and how things should be done.
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