A Hello & An Intro from Mandy

Hi, I'm Mandy, the youngest sister. Like Lori said, that designation doesn't mean much most of the time--except when we do something like start a blog together based on the fact that we're five sisters--and then it seems important to mention. Now that we're all adults and even most of their kids (I don't have any) are adults, well, it doesn't always matter as much!

A little bit about me: I'm in Southwest Virginia attending grad school at Virginia Tech, where I'll write my dissertation on communication in the architecture/engineering/construction industry (to be very brief about that). Other possible blog topics for me: I've been interested in food (making it and eating it, of course, but also food as culture, food politics and policy, food production, etc.) for all of my adult life. I've been married for 5 years; I went to high school with my husband (and we even had mutual friends and activities), but we didn't meet (at a mutual friend's birthday party) and start dating until we were 28.

I'm also the one on this blog whose contributions may include thoughts on things like belly dance, yoga, and kung fu. I love good beer, good music (particularly if it's played live and I can dance to it), and seeing as much as I can of the world right outside my doorstep and far beyond.

And since I'm interested in having some kind of "unified online presence," go ahead and take a look at:

My professional website (which needs updated);

Follow me @wrightcron on twitter, where I follow, tweet, and retweet about rhetoric, education, food, philosophy, politics, belly dance and hip hop dance, kung fu, yoga, beer, ... ;

and/or @the_mandohlin on Instagram, where I'm trying my hand at #100happydays;

and more to come (a YouTube channel--as TheMandohlin, maybe a Pinterest page, and contributions to my kung fu school's new website, for sure).

I also like parentheticals. My use of dashes and parentheses might make you dizzy, dear reader. Let's hope not.

Cheers!