About

Hi!  I'm Colleen and this is my web log. Welcome!  Why Barefoot Without a Cause?  Truthfully because rageagainsttheminivan.com and mysecretonlinejournal.com were already taken.  I settled on this because being barefoot makes me feel free in the simplest way.  Most days my activist heart feels overwhelmed with all there is in the world to fight for so I end up fighting a little for too many causes and not enough for any of them.  I'm working on it.

I'm a lot of things: daughter, sister, friend, beauty seeker, lover of laughter, coffee shop frequenter.  I'm married to a devilishly handsome man, Tommy who is funny, kind hearted, good and a more amazing father than I could have imagined he would be when I married him.  I have three kiddos- a 4 year old boy, Monster (who is nothing like his nickname), and a 2 year old girl Toots (who was the world's easiest baby and is the world's funniest toddler) and a newborn, Red.  Red joined us this past May and it's too soon to tell what exactly she'll be like but I'm thinking a bit of a fireball :).

I love Jesus- he captivated my life 10 years ago and when I get caught up in the muck of pharisees and religion He reminds me he came for a different way.  I'm trying little by little to live more into that way.  Home is the suburbs of Chicago, but my heart belongs to New York City, with a small piece residing in Ireland.  For the whole of my post-college career life I've worked with teens as a teacher, coach and now youth minister. I used to be a high school English teacher but you'd never know it from my frequent grammatical errors and misspelled words.  Despite the fact that I can't sew, draw and am typically 2 years late to all fashion trends, I would give my left arm to be on Project Runway.  I've never met a red wine I didn't love.  I'm trying to lean more into writing now that I'm in my (*ahem*) thirties (gross).  Because the thirties is all about self discovery right?

What will you find here?  Well, you probably wont find craft ideas, anything DIY, style and fashion tips, interior design ideas, or fantastic photography.  This space is a place for the millions of thoughts that swirl around my head throughout the day.  I'm a doubter by nature, a wrestler with God, a question asker.  The deeper I go with God the more gray life becomes.  And I like it that way.  Good, bad, ugly and beautiful, in the words of Anne Frank, "I still believe, despite everything, that people are good at heart."

Currently, I'm practicing saying more with fewer words.  It's a work in progress.

I'd love to hear from you!  Leave a comment or email me at barefootpowell [at] gmail [dot] com.  You can also follow me on twitter (disclaimer: I'm still getting the swing of tweeting.)