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Community Corner

Moms Who Rock Around Our Towns: Patty Chang Anker

Patty Chang Anker writes the blog "Facing Forty Upside Down" and teaches yoga

Each week, we're going to share with you a local mom who we think is awesome. We'll ask her some questions and hear about how she manages life with kids in our area. We hope you'll enjoy getting to know some of our neighbors.

Patty Chang Anker blogs at Facing Forty Upside Down  and is a writer. She lives in Hastings-on-Hudson with her husband, their daughters, G (age 10) and R (age 5).


1. How do you balance being a mom and working?

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Patty just began writing full-time this past fall and still feels like a "Chinese acrobat spinning plates on sticks and praying they don’t go flying off into the audience every night."(Rivertowns' Editor's note: Best quote ever!)

Because her daughters are now in school, she is able to research and write until the early afternoon and then spend time with them doing the usual "race through activities, homework, dinner, bath and bed." Like many parents, she goes back working in the evening and somehow still fits in cooking and housework. Patty is still trying to figure out how to work when her kids are home if they are sick or on vacation.

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For her, writing can happen at any time. For example, she can get "an idea and and stay up most of the night," or drop what she is doing on a weekend afternoon and start writing. Her family has been supportive and have had to help out more. 

Patty is "realizing that balancing working and motherhood means balancing discipline with flexibility."

She shares many of the same challenges working moms all over do on a daily basis. She knows she is a work in progress and shares "I like knowing that in midlife I’m still learning and growing and making things up as I go!"

2. We think your book deal is awesome and read your blog and would love to hear more it.

Patty is excited about her upcoming book, Some Nerve: Lessons Learned While Becoming Brave, Riverhead Books, 2013. She is currently interviewing people about how they face common fears, like public speaking, swimming, driving, failure, intimacy, etc. (feel free to be in touch with her if you want to participate in her interviews at anker@verizon.net).  This is important to Patty because she "was so afraid to fail growing up" and now that she is a parent, she wants  to "show my kids how to take risks and work through disappointments and to enjoy the act of trying."

Patty's blog, Facing Forty Upside Down is where she "faced fears (of doing anything requiring physical coordination or a willingness to be publicly humiliated) by learning how to dive into a swimming pool, do a handstand and ride a bike, and where readers share their stories and encourage each other." She is a Good
Housekeeping Blogger We Love and a Circle of Moms Top 25 Funny Mom.

3. When you find time for yourself, what do you enjoy doing locally?

Patty teaches yoga and gives Thai bodywork sessions and enjoys visiting other yoga classes and meeting other teachers and therapists.  She also likes swimming at NYSC and walking on the Old Croton Aqueduct. She can often be found meeting friends at Antoinette's Patisserie in Hastings and shares that her "writing is powered by Giacobean coffee!"

4. What are some of your top things to do around Westchester with your family?

This family can be found enjoying Westchester outdoor spots including Muscoot Farm, the Greenburgh Nature Center, Harbor Island playground,Edgemont playground, and "any and every park along the river." They also attend many of the festivals in the area like Take Me to the River and Animals and Acrobats. This crew enjoys hearing storyteller Jonathan Kruk at some of these events too.  

The Ankers "love the food at in Tarrytown and want to give Isaac at
a shout out for delivering a special allergy-free pie to the school for pizza Fridays each week!"

5. What is your favorite thing about living in this area?

Patty loves this area and "that it’s beautiful in all seasons, and that when I smile at people they smile back."

6. Anything else you want to share?

You can find Patty at Facing Forty Upside Down, on Facebook or on Twitter at @UpsideDownPatty.


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