Eva

According to TRACEY…

Knowing Eva is truly an adventure.  It’s like one big party after another—literally.  Over the years of our friendship, I’ve enjoyed many fun and unique Eva-events, including my son’s baby shower—a Pirate Murder Mystery.  Yep.  Eva doesn’t do anything ordinary.

Besides being my favorite hostess with the mostest, Eva is a natural entrepreneur.  She and her husband operate a successful trade show supply business based here in Orlando.  They have a symbiotic relationship: Chris keeps the clients happy; Eva keeps the books black.  It’s sweet, really.

What else can I tell you about my dear friend?  She’s a great mom to her two girls, of course.  Oh, and one day Eva announced that she wanted to be healthier.  Six months later she was in a triathlon.  That summer she held a multi-generational fitness day in her hometown in Puerto Rico for three dozen or so of her closest family members.   And now she’s starting nutrition school.

English is Eva’s second language, but video is her third.  It’s the form of communication that feels most natural to her.  But Eva’s passion and enthusiasm come across in whatever medium she employs.  So while Eva herself will insist she is not a writer, the rest of us Chicks know better than to listen to her, and you should, too.  Besides, going through The Artist’s Way was Eva’s idea.  So it’s all her fault: us four regular moms trying to become fulfilled artists, this crazy blog, everything.

See, whatever Eva decides to do, she does with the force of her whole being.  Like a perky, Puerto-Rican bulldozer, she moves mountains–and people–as needed, through her sheer positive will.  Yet even more, Eva is also a natural coach. Without even being conscious of it, Eva is always encouraging others to reach their goals and helping empower them to do it.  Truth be told, this can be annoying.  I mean, it’s really hard to procrastinate properly with Eva and her prying questions.  I especially loathe her cheery, “So what’s your next step?” (My answer: off a cliff.)

That’s Eva, as I see her.  If you follow this blog, I think you’ll come to love this irrepressible trouble-maker as much as I do.

Peggy

Vivi says…

What can I say about Peggy? I believe it’s best to put it in the form of Haiku:

Friend and confidante

Her talent is outstanding

None can hold her back

Seventeen syllables don’t seem to do her credit, so I’ll try this:

<cue suspenseful music> A time long ago, in a land far away…there was a woman called Peggy

Nope, themed movie announcement doesn’t seem to work either, so I will elaborate in prose. Having worked in the field of human resources, Peggy may come across as professional, put-together, and poised. However, I know the truth – she’s a nut!  I have known Peggy since moving to Orlando and being introduced through our husbands, who were fraternity brothers. She can take the sarcasm I dish out and turn it right back around in a truly hilarious way. I realized immediately that working with Peggy on a young adult novel would be a perfect collaboration. She helped take a project that was going nowhere and give it direction.

She’s a busy lady, balancing a job as a consultant and providing executive coaching at a local college while managing her career development blog and shepherding her kids to soccer tournaments or spelling bees. No matter how much she has on her plate, she can always be counted on to enjoy life.

She is a fellow artist whom I feel honored to call a friend.

Tracey

What EVA Has to Say About Her Fellow Chick…

I believe that people come into your life for a reason: mainly, to teach you what you need to learn about about yourself.   Tracey is one of those people who has come into my life to inspire me, push me and make me realize how wonderful I am (hahaha).

Tracey is a fantastic mother to two amazing kids and a caring wife to a very supportive husband.   On top of these leading roles, Tracey is also a very creative artist who expresses herself through many different passions.   She is an actress, ballet dancer and singer.   She loves all things to do with pirates and history.  She quilts, composes songs, recycles fanatically and cleans her house obsessively.

But Tracey’s biggest talent is that she is truly a talented writer.  A children’s story she wrote is in the process of being published.  Meanwhile, she continues to follow a longer endeavor, one that she has been working on for over three years already—that is, to finish her first novel (as she handles her hectic life running after her toddler son, homeschooling her daughter, maintaining a house and keeping her husband happy!)

As women, we sometimes wonder, “Can I do it all?”  Well, Tracey shows me that all I need is motivation, commitment and perseverance to accomplish whatever I wish to do.  That’s why I have every confidence that Tracey will finish her book.  She has a way of putting words together so beautifully; I love to read what she writes, and I know the rest of the world will, too.

Now she might tell you that I don’t know what I’m talking about and that I’m going to write all mushy stuff about her because we are such good friends.  But the reality is we all have our strengths and weaknesses.  Can Tracey be emotional at times?  YES.  Does she listen, at times, to that little voice in her head that tells her that she can’t do it?  YES.  But we all do, and we all go through similar challenges trying to find balance in our lives as mothers, wives and artists.

So don’t just take it from me.   Follow along and see for yourself what an amazing and creative person Tracey is.

Vivi

According to Peggy…

Vivi and I met through our husbands and instantly clicked.  From the first day, it was as though we’d known each other forever.  I soon recognized it was because we both were lovers of words and, as such, shared a common language and sensibility.  Beyond that, she has that kind of sparkling personality that I’ve always admired.  She exudes happiness, laughs a lot and cares about people.  She likes to joke that her personality is her best feature, and you know what?  She’s right!  Everyone loves to be around her.  She brings out the funny side of life.  She appreciates all senses of humor, even dry, sarcastic ones like mine.

In her working life, Vivi has had the opportunity to produce business communications for a global company, which means she writes all day some days.  As a testament to her creative drive, she thrives on artistic endeavors in her personal life as well.  She has a keen talent for singing and playing the piano and, of course, writing.  She loves a good story and loves to tell a good story.  She can make up the most imaginative stories at the drop of a hat, and delights her children with them at bedtime.

It has been an adventure working with Vivi these last years (we won’t say exactly how many) to tell the story of a young girl finding her way through the modern drama that is high school.  We have found a place of true collaboration – where once it was her voice and my voice, now it is “our” voice that comes out in our writing.  And now, we are collaborating once more, along with two other great friends, to create 4 Chicks and a Muse – to continue inspiring and encouraging each other along our journey.