Introducing Quincey Upshaw

Hello everyone! I’m a Florida native (or pretty close—moving here at 1 year old should count!) and a mama to two glorious, goofy and gorgeous little girls. I grew up in a part of Orlando that fancies itself Winter Park, and for all the time I spent strolling Park Avenue I guess the WP is my hometown. I came to the Tampa Bay area to attend USF, but I stayed because this area offers the best of Florida: beautiful weather, history, culture and BEACHES. A bit of my Norwegian seafarer blood cries out every time I’m away from the water; Tampa’s salty air and watery vistas are essential to my sanity.

I met my husband online (it’s a thing! A thing that works!). Though he is a native Californian, I guess the combination of me and the area convinced him to stay here and put down roots. I was a high school English teacher for many years, but now I work for the First Year Composition program at USF teaching freshman English. It is tough to balance grading and class prep while being a mom, but I am grateful for our life here and the opportunities for family activities all over the Bay Area.

I am an avid reader and I wrote my Master’s thesis on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, so I feel like that gives me some nerdy street cred (library cred?). I grew up one of those kids for whom “friends” in books were just a vivid as my friends in real life, so narratives are a vital part of our household. Reading books together and movie nights at home and the theater are huge priorities, and as our girls grow my goal is to introduce them to live theater and dance as well.

However, we DO have plenty of high-kicking drama of our own. My two girls are 21 months apart, and all the mommies of close-in-age siblings know that the kiddos can go from the best of friends to bitter enemies and back in moments. It is a glitter-coated, squawking roller coaster ride, but I am convinced that they will be close friends as adults and that will make all the screeching (so… much… screeching) worth it. At least, that is the hope I cling to as the whining crests and ebbs, or the silence from the playroom becomes suspicious: Keep Calm and Know You are Raising Future Superhero Best Friends.

In the upcoming months, my goal is to write about my outlook as a proud Geek Mom, the messy sublimity that comes from the privilege of raising two girls, and how I ran my household when life threw me the curveball of cancer. Thankfully, I am all better now and thrilled to be joining the TBMB bloggers! Thank you for reading!