Working, Playing, Volunteering, and Raising Kids in 'Toga

I’m a working mom in my 40s, and I regularly volunteer in our community. I love Saratoga which my husband and I refer to as a quaint village nestled in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, and I look forward to blogging for the new Saratoga Patch. We’ve lived here since 1998.

I plan to write about working, playing, volunteering and raising kids in Saratoga and the West Valley. My first posts will be about how to keep your Facebook and other accounts from being hacked, what I did during my six-month sabbatical from work—which had something to do with a wild mountain lion and the Queen of England—and how to get your kid into Harvard.

There are a lot of things I love about Saratoga. Despite the high cost of living, the weather is near perfect and we are just a hop, skip and a jump from some of the best tourist attractions in the world including “the bridge,” breath-taking beaches and 60 wineries in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

There is also a lot of innovation and entrepreneurial spirit in our community. I also appreciate how healthy we are, constantly dog walking, running, biking, hiking, for example, on the popular Los Gatos Creek trail. My husband, an Ironman, is a member of the West Valley Joggers and Striders who meet weekly at the local college track.

Prior to living here, I lived in Sunnyvale, and before that, Boston. I was born and raised in a suburb of Cleveland. No, I don’t miss the humidity and snow storms!

I have a journalism degree from Ohio University and I’ve done high tech public relations and for the past 20 years at both large and small companies. I’m also the social media chair and parliamentarian, which is like a lawyer, for the Sixth District (county-level) PTA (www.capta6.org).

I started my PTA career when my son was in kindergarten at Marshall Lane Elementary School in Saratoga. Back then I chaired an online fundraising program and then became the PTA president at his school. I have also coached his baseball and soccer teams. (I first met Saratoga Councilman Howard Miller when we both coached U5 in Region 27 AYSO a few years ago.)

My 11-year-old son is already taller than me, gets straight As, and is a patrol leader with his Saratoga Boy Scout Troop 566. My second “child” is a big dog named Shasta who is part St. Bernard, Aussie Shepherd and Border Collie. He is a handful and sort of like the dog in the move “Beethoven,” but he makes life interesting. Yes, I will be blogging about his adventures around town.

I love social media including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Youtube and am proud to say that one of the viral marketing videos that I shot with my little Flip camera has had more than 20,000 views. If there are any topics you’d like me to write about that may be of interest to Saratogans please let me know.

My views are my own and not endorsed by PTA or my employer.