Hello there! My name is Loren McEllin, but you can call me ‘Lo,’ ‘Lo-Lo,’ or ‘Total Babe’–I’m fine with any of those, really.
 
Raised as a corn-fed, beef-comatosed Midwestern girl, I am now a vegan by day, and boxed-wine consumer by night. (My bets are on the wine consumption outliving the veganism—this whole ‘wine solves all’ seems like less of a fad for me.)  In addition to eating clean in the AM just to negate all the hard work by bedtime, I am addicted to eyebrows, BBQs in the spring, documentaries about food, candid photography, post-run endorphins, Mid-century modern everything, Intervention, perfectly ripe avocados, and musicians—ANY live music evokes happiness in ma’ bones.  
 
I am the founder of a walking/running group here in Austin called ‘Trotting with Tots.’  We meet several times a week all over Austin (Round Rock/Pflugerville/Cedar Park/Georgetown/Buda too).  I’d say that as a whole, we congratulate one another on our getting out the door in a timely fashion as much as we do about completing our first 5k. Every day is a different challenge, and it’s nice to know that sometimes the biggest one is arriving without (too much) spit-up on our shirt.  
 
Through this Mama Tribe, I have seen most of our amazing city by foot (as have my children), and it’s been a sweet, and every so often unsurpassable, adventure.  I love the women, the baby daddies and all the kiddos—such a diverse and unique grouping of people with three commonalities – a love for exercise, socialization and the great Austin outdoors. 
 
I’ve been married to a tall, dark and handsome man for 7 nomadic years. His name is Mike, or Michael Shaun if you ask his mother. We met one snow-infested day at Boston’s Logan airport, stuck on the tarmac for longer than it would have taken me to drive back to my home in Hoboken. I, however, was not complaining as the airplane was certainly more roomy than my post-college railroad style Jersey apartment.  Since that one fine day, I have been dotted with endless delays and cancelled flights—just ask my husband that insists on taking a separate flight any time we fly.
 
I am a Mother to two youngsters, Daniel Gage (08/21/12) and Gemma Ellori (03/10/15).  Gage is our level-headed, sensitive, purple-loving, scooter-sporting, safari animal enthusiast. Gage is that boy that pretty much potty trained himself and asks to go to bed when he’s tired. He’s essentially the kid that makes parents say they don’t want a second because they don’t want a polar opposite. Whelp, meet Gemma.  She is stubborn as a moscow mule, is perhaps the youngest person in the world to have already mastered selective hearing, and she can charm the heck out of you just by a sashay of her hips (which she has also perfected). I instantly regret all of the bad I’ve done in life. Karma is not going to be fun with this one. In the words of Bieber, ‘Is it too late now to say sorry?’  (And yes, I love the Biebs… ANY music, remember?).
 
Oh, and I mustn’t forget to ‘introduce’ you to Killian, our first major purchase as fiancé and fiancee. She is an almost 9 year old white lab that is allergic to even her own skin, literally. Her top three allergies are pet dander, house dust and cedar—it’s ok to laugh, I’m past it. With that being said, she has special shampoo that costs more than 1/4 of my weekly budget, allergy shots that I must give to her once every two weeks (which reminds me….) and in the summer, she wears sunscreen.  You do not know high maintenance until you’ve met this dog.  But we love her none-the-less, especially since she’s the family celebrity—she was in Marley & Me at 8 weeks of age.
 
And while I’m dominating the listing of things, here are some fun facts I learned over the past year that I thought you may find enjoyable/worth knowing:
 
1. The taste and consistency of cheese can never be replaced.
2. Cucumbers remain worthless.
3. Not everyone knows how to properly operate a fly swatter.
4. Running with a swollen knee will only make it swell more.
5. Boxed wine bags double as camping pillows. Consume, inflate, lay, snooze.
6. Dishes won’t do themselves — even though Merlin made me believe otherwise.
 
That’s me in a rather squished pistachio shell (another yum of mine). I am truly honored to be a part of this amazing network of women writers, and it’s mostly because now I’ll feel like less of an AMB stalker.
Loren McEllin
Lo is the Founder + Chief Innovation Officer of Trotting with Tots, a local stroller-toting mama tribe. When not scoping out new trails and neighborhoods to explore with the running group, she spends her time cooking up random vegan concoctions, inflicting pain on friends with her waxing skills, putzing around on her Cricut machine, inventing some new house project for her husband, and/or drinking wine while watching the latest episode of Intervention. Lo is married to her very own Magic Mike, whom she met on an airplane, and is lackey Mom to two munchkins (Gage + Gemma), and an allergy-ridden pup (Killian). She loves the color yellow, the sound of high heels on asphalt and gargantuan wind chimes.

2 COMMENTS

  1. You are the cutest, Total Babe. And my eyebrows miss you just as much as I can imagine you miss them. So many warm and fuzzies to you my friend 😘

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