I’m A Clubwoman

Callie’s Chaos

by callie on 07/24/09 at 4:17 pm

I want to issue an apology for having let so much time lapse since my last blog. My life as I know it has been turned inside out as I have walked away from a business relationship and started up a new enterprise. I figure this is what this blog place is all about: us women as we go through the great challenges of life, and mine is definitely been a challenge over the last three months. I don’t know if I have said anything about this before, but in addition to being mother of five and a GFWC member I also own and operate my own small town newspaper. I write a weekly column as part of the paper and I would like to share with you my first editorial in my newest endeavor. I hope you enjoy it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Not in his goals, but in his transitions is man great.” In my life I have learned quite a bit about transitions. I have transitioned from being a friend, a girlfriend, a fiancé, to being a wife and from being a babysitter, mother-to-be, and then a mother. I have also learned how to evolve from college graduate, stay-at-home mom, sandwich artist, clerk, and newspaper editor. With the writing of this the inaugural edition of Callie’s Chaos, I am starting a new transition, to publisher of The New Stamford American.

Out of five generations of the Richards family, I am now the fourth generation to hold this title. If you lived in the Rule/Rochester area in the 1950s and 1960s, you might remember a friendly newspaper man that always had ink around his nails from spending so much time at a linotype machine and printing press. His name was Alton Richards, he was my grandpa, and he was the owner and publisher of the Rule Review. He came by the profession naturally, his parents, H.R. and Dora Richards as well as his grandfather, W.H. Richards, all helped to bring the Anton News to life. So it appears that the one thing I did inherit from the Richards side of my family was that my blood is full of printer’s ink and tends to run more black than red.

I have picked the name Callie’s Chaos, because that describes my life perfectly most of the time. I once described the word CHAOS as Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome. Often my life is an ongoing battle to defeat the ever present dust bunny, monster pile of laundry, and the waste land that is known as the playroom. A wise man once said,” You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.” It has been through my various transitions that I have learned that chaos can sometimes be the mother of invention and the thing that helps you to laugh when everything is going wrong and your child has just said the craziest thing you have ever heard.

I hope you will enjoy the journey that we are about embark on together as much as I and my wonderful team have enjoyed putting it together. The New Stamford American wants to be part of the life of Stamford, sharing good things with you, being a part of your lives. And we want you to be a part of American, sharing your good things with us. We are glad to be here. We hope you are glad to have us. We are located on the north side of the square, so come see us.