Hello and thank you for reading Dirty Pretty Thangs! I was told that my blog needed a proper “About Me” section, so the people who read my blog can get to know me a lil’ bit.
You caught me smilin'...again
I write my blog under the name “The Pretty Brown Girl”, but I’m known simply as “CaShawn” in The Real World. I’m a 4th generation native of Washington, DC. I actually live just a few blocks away from the hospital where I was born!
PBG at age 2
I’m “The Cool Mom” to my two children “Ike & Tina” and their friends. My daughter is a beautiful and poised 18 year-old and my son is 13 year-old who is quickly transforming from my Baby Boy into a wonderful young man and they are pretty much the center of my world.
Ike n' Tina, May 2000
I was educated in the DC Public System, back when it was worth actually mentioning that and at the University of DC. For most of my grown-up life, I’ve been a professional childcare provider working almost exclusively with infants, toddlers & their families for the last 10 years. I love babies and all kinds of families.
I started blogging back in 2005 on MySpace as an extension of my personal journal writing that I started as a 2nd grader, way back when. I started first posting stories of my daily adventures as a nanny and as a Mommy. I quickly gained a following of a bunch of friendly people with a strange attraction to stories of the mundane told with flare. As I grew as a blogger I went on to begin comedic social commentary and even making up mini-stories based on “Three Random Words”. I delved into the realm of beauty blogging with my former site “52 Flavors” which focused on nail beauty for women of color. I reviewed hundreds of polishes while running that site and featured a lot of my fellow “Pretty Brown Girls” nail art designs. I also was a sagacious adviser to those “living in confusion” (no Phyllis Hyman) with my blog “Hey You Asked”. I don’t blog on those sites any more, but both of those are still important components of DirtyPrettyThangs.com. While I consider myself to be an “Urban Humorist” in my writing, I do indeed get serious on certain subjects I tackle and speak from a place of true concern, especially for women, children and people of color.
Lately, I’ve been doing a bit of event planning/promotion and helping others increase their visibility on the Internet. Right now, I’m doing it for the free, but once I’ve built up a reputation I’ll be expecting a FEE. Mmmhmmm. What else can I tell you?? Oh! I love meeting my online friends in person, so DON’T be afraid to come up and introduce yourself if you ever see me out and about.
Hopefully this will be my last blog home for a while, so subscribe, read, comment, join the Dirty Pretty Thangs Facebook Fan Page, the DPT Microblog, Little Dirty Pretty Thangs on Tumblr and of course follow me on Twitter.
OkPlsThxBye!
~pbg
