Meet Us
Hi everyone! Thank you for coming by to read our story and meet us. We are the creators of Piratude, a blog that treasures family, freedom and fun.
We created Piratude (Pirate + Attitude) as a way to help working parents and Jimmy Buffett parrotheads such as ourselves create a laid-back beach lifestyle anywhere they live and re-engage with their families.
Being a working parent is hard. There are just not enough hours in the day.
How do you find time to re-engage in life when you can’t seem to get all the laundry folded? Is there some way you can bottle that relaxed vacation feeling and enjoy it all year long?
There is hope and it does not include being able to do it all.
“Some of it’s magic and some of it’s tragic but I had a good life all the way.” – Jimmy Buffett
Meet Christy
I’m a land-locked pirate but a hula girl at heart. I live in the beautiful state of Arizona and, take it from me, there’s no ocean-front property anywhere (I’ve checked). My love of the beach carries through to many aspects of my life (e.g. home renovations, decorating, clothing styles, child rearing, and even my career).
I’m a recent Jimmy Buffett Parrothead, a lover of margaritas and wine, and an expert in pirate-ship playgrounds.
In addition to sailing the seven seas (in my head), I am a full-time professional with a master’s degree, an equally encumbered spouse, a mortgage, three rambunctious (that’s the polite way to say it) kids under 7, one standard poodle who loves to swim but hates the rain, and a cat that will pee on the couch if you give her half a chance.
After having a panic attack and living life in stress, I had to make a change. I had to look at the way I was managing my life and refocus. I needed to re-engage in life and steal it back for my family.
All of this led me to adopt a new philosophy which has helped alleviate the stress from trying to “have it all” and gave me the permission to relax, enjoy my weekends, and concentrate on my personal priorities. Our family now lives our life with Piratude.
By living life with Piratude, you will have energy to re-engage in your life.
I am an engagement strategist. For more than a decade, I have worked with employees, volunteers, college alumni, and students on how to successfully manage their time, identify strengths, and better address personal and professional goals.
I’m here to show you how to find more time in your day to do the things you love, spend quality time with your loved ones, reinvest in your relationship, and even have more fun at your job.
Meet Steve
If Steve is not in career mode, he is either busy on a project in the backyard, running to Home Depot, or researching vacation spots using Google Earth. He is the embodiment of Newton’s law of inertia – a body in motion tends to stay in motion.
A hydrogeologist by trade and home contractor on the weekends, he doesn’t seem to know how to slow down. With so much time devoted to his career, running around after three crazy kids, and my honey-do lists, it’s no wonder he prefers to spend his “free” time on his hobby – creating our beach backyard! Most men prefer to sit and relax on the weekends but Steve is happiest when he is physically tearing things apart or building something for the family.
His main focus on this blog is to help you build your own backyard paradise with step-by-step instructions. He is also the one who finds the best vacation spots for our family and has an uncanny way of navigating us past even the worst traffic jams (Los Angeles – I’m looking at you!).
Meet the Pirates
This blog is about living a life with piratude and that includes parenting like a pirate. These three keep us on our toes and no day is ever boring. As a pirate mom, I naturally have three little pirates in my charge. You will see me refer to them as Pirate Princess, Lady Pirate, and Pirate Prince.
Come on this Journey with Us!
Let us ask – Does any of this sound familiar?
You have kids.
You work.
You commute.
You try to do everything a stay-at-home mom/dad does on the weekends and the evenings but are slowly going mad at the sheer weight of keeping up a home and a full-time job.
Between chauffeuring your prodigy to dance, swim, and baseball practices you somehow forgot that important business call first thing in the morning. To add insult to injury, you will now be completely unprepared because your notes are sitting in your office (along with your travel coffee mug you forgot to bring home).
After you drop the kids off at school and are half-way to work you realize that today was the last day for cookie-dough/candy/wrapping paper orders at school for the fundraiser and you are now “that parent.”
Your kids are always asking you to play but you have to clean the house or pay the bills.
You are always tired and are not engaging with your kids or your spouse in the way you wish you could.
If you found yourself nodding your head in empathy and want a way out of the whirlwind of the day-to-day life cycle look no further.
You have found a community of people in the same boat and equally passionate about finding a way to reinvent the way we set up our days.
How Do I Re-Engage?
Re-engaging with your family is so important. Those precious years where your children want to be with you are few and fleeting. To help me in my quest, I have adopted a new mantra.
Live Life with Piratude [a pirate attitude]
As my Pirate Princess will tell you, “We have Piratude mommy!”
The philosophy centers around creating your own paradise and opportunities in life.
Piratude is doing what you love, feeling free and confident in your choices, and not living life by a clock. Piratude is setting your priorities toward fun, adventure, and the pursuit of what you treasure most.
It is divesting yourself of the expectations others have set for you and reorganizing your life to focus on the goals of your family and your own dreams.
Here are just a couple of things you’ll learn here (Family, Freedom, Fun):
- Family: Parenting like a pirate
- Family: Games and activities to re-engage with your own little pirates
- Family: Family-friendly luxury beach and resort travel
- Freedom: How to prioritize your day to maximize time with your family and do the things you love
- Freedom:When it’s OK to let things go in the pursuit of higher goals (give yourself permission to be flawed)
- Freedom: How to take back the hours and minutes in your day
- Fun: How to keep that coastal vacation vibe alive by building a backyard beach
- Fun: Do-it-yourself coastal decor for the home
- Fun: How to have fun even while doing the typically unexciting tasks of adulthood (we call it “Adulting”)
