About

I shared in "So...I'm a blogger. Now what?" that I am a wife and the stay at home mom of two children.  We have a tendency to do everything big, hence the moniker of The Overachieving Bunch.  While I have always been an overachiever of sorts, my current life would be a bit of a surprise to my younger self.

As a teen, I was the ambitious sort of overachiever.  I took every advanced science and math class that my high school offered.  I was involved in academic teams that would lead one to believe that I was a full-fledged geek.  However, I was also involved in vocal music, drama, football and basketball cheerleading, plus more activities and committees than I could ever remember now.  I had ambitions of being the first in my family to graduate from college, either to be a physical therapist or as a pre-med major on my way to becoming a pediatrician.  And I could have done it!  But then someone who shall remain nameless introduced me to a new kind of overachieving in college.  I don't think you need to know any more about that version of me!

Before my boys were born, I worked an assortment of jobs.  I waited tables, answered phones, filed mountains of paperwork, picked in a warehouse and collected on overdue bills.  I overachieved wherever I went, in some form or another.  I don't regret this part of my life one bit -- not even when people remind me of what I might have been if I had stuck to the straight and narrow.  I do regret that so many customers were showered with chocolate milkshakes.  There are many ways to overachieve!

Eventually, I settled down and found new ways to overachieve.  My husband, the Big Overachiever, is much more mellow than me.  And that's a good thing, because two adult versions of me in one house would be disastrous!  Hilarious to the onlookers, I am certain, but disastrous nonetheless.  The birth of Overachiever #1 introduced me to the world of food allergies and allergic asthma.  I quickly realized that he was as "all or nothing" orientated as his mama.  Overachiever #2 came along a couple of years later and partnered with his big brother to introduce me to the world of eosinophilic esophagus -- EoE for short.  You'll have to read my blog to learn more about this new form of overachieving.  Not to be outdone, the Big Overachiever and I have since developed life threatening food allergies.  We could be dubbed the Epi-carrying Bunch, except that we are more than our allergies.

I strive to overachieve in other areas of life, as well -- as a parent, a school volunteer, a friend, a Notre Dame football fan, and an advocate for those with food allergies and eosinophilic gastrointestinal disorders.  It is my sincerest hope that I will eventually be able to overachieve in the world of blogging -- to give guidance where I can, commiseration where I can't, and laughter even if it is sometimes at the expense of my propensity to overachieve.