BootStrapBitch is a HUGE and PROUD supporter of the LGBTQ+ Community. It is very near and dear to me and my family. For Pride Month I wanted to do a special episode in celebration of this wonderful community I LOVE so much, so I asked my friend Tracy Palmer to come on. Tracy and her wife have been on a very difficult and emotionally taxing fertility journey to becoming Mommies. Tracy is candid, raw, emotional, and educational as she speaks about #QueerFertility and how very difficult it is for this community to become parents. 

Tracy is now the founder of Inclusive Fertility LLC where she seeks to support LGBTQ+ folks on their path to parenthood.  She believes that navigating the fertility landscape as an LGBTQ+ person is difficult enough, you don't have to do it alone. Tracy spent the last decade+ in fitness and felt the pull to make a career change when her own 2 year journey with her wife to parenthood brought to light the inequity and challenges faced by queer folks building their families. She now spends her time advocating for change in clinics, communities, and policies..https://inclusivefertility.com/

BootStrapBitch is a HUGE and PROUD supporter of the LGBTQ+ Community. It is very near and dear to me and my family. For Pride Month I wanted to do a special episode in celebration of this wonderful community I LOVE so much, so I asked my friend Tracy Palmer to come on. Tracy and her wife have been on a very difficult and emotionally taxing fertility journey to becoming Mommies. Tracy is candid, raw, emotional, and educational as she speaks about #QueerFertility and how very difficult it is for this community to become parents.

Tracy is now the founder of Inclusive Fertility LLC where she seeks to support LGBTQ+ folks on their path to parenthood.  She believes that navigating the fertility landscape as an LGBTQ+ person is difficult enough, you don't have to do it alone. Tracy spent the last decade+ in fitness and felt the pull to make a career change when her own 2-year journey with her wife to parenthood brought to light the inequity and challenges faced by queer folks building their families. She now spends her time advocating for change in clinics, communities, and policies..https://inclusivefertility.com/

We are back! In this episode, Michelle talks about her decades-spanning career, her life as a single mother to two children, her passion projects and her love of the Freefall!  She started out modelling and found acting on Daytime's Young And The Restless and General Hospital to Primetime's Pacific Palisades. During this time, Michelle also took on the role of a single mother. She speaks very candidly about her fertility journey using two surrogates to create the family she so wanted. 

In 2013, She created her own incredibly funny Web Series The Stafford Project on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qomwV1BqEK0

Michelle also created the successful organic skincare line, SkinNation. https://skinnation.com/

This is a brilliant lady with an equally compelling story... 

Maurice Benard is an accomplished actor with a career spanning decades playing the mysterious, dangerous, handsome Mob Boss, Sonny Corinthos on ABC's General Hospital for which Maurice has won two Daytime Emmy's. His public journey with Bipolar Disorder has made him a staunch advocate for Mental Health and Mental Health Awareness. He is further reaching his fans and helping shine the much-needed spotlight on Mental Health in his new NYTimes Best Selling Memoir "Nothing General About It: How Love (And Lithium) Saved Me On And Off General Hospital https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-General-About-Lithium-Hospital/dp/0062973371

Additionally, Maurice has launched his very popular YouTube Channel "State Of Mind" where he and his guests discuss all things great and small.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_rEI_NNc5pLloK0YEBVUsg

For Mental Health Awareness Month, Maurice is the perfect guest for the first May Episode.

Carmindy found makeup artistry from being bullied in school. She found art in makeup and the Angels in transforming women. Carmindy traveled from California to Miami to NY to build her brand. Thanks to her dear friend Stacy London, Carmindy became the makeup artist on TLC's What Not To Wear for 340 episodes. She was at the peak of her success when she married the wrong guy, parted with half her money and then found herself in an abusive relationship and almost homeless. Her story of pulling herself up by her BootStraps with the help of her girlfriends is beyond inspirational. Quite frankly the word for Carmindy's journey has yet to be invented! She has rebuilt herself and is now in collaboration with QVC with a brand new line Carmindy Beauty a 5 Minute Beauty to help us busy women and a passion to change the female narrative by Carmidizing all of us!!!

Here is Carmindy... Check out her brand new Collection with QVC... 5 Minute Beauty with Carmindy.

https://www.google.com/search?q=carmindy+qvc&oq=carmindy&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j35i39j0l3j69i61j69i60.10179j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

I met this talented lady on the set of my tv show CBS's Blood and Treasure. She directed 2 episodes and it was love at first hot flash. Tawnia grew up in Hollywood Royalty as the daughter of famed TV Producer Stephen J Cannell who created 40 TV shows such as Rockford Files, Baretta, and 21 Jump Street. The apple didn't fall far from the tree, as Tawnia is a very busy tv director for shows such as NCIS LA, Criminal Minds, Riverdale, and the list goes on. Tawnia talks about her childhood, her career, and her recent journey with breast cancer. As always, Tawnia is candid and most important, real about the highs and lows of life. 

From All My Children to Walker Texas Ranger and everything in between, to drugs and a hint of jail time to starring in The Bodyguard The Musical all over the country. This handsome, honest, and humble hero of mine has lived multiple lives in just this one. Judson Mills is a wise, highly spiritual man who has a very unique understanding of the human spirit and all we are capable of. I adore him plain and simple. 

Please visit the hospital that helped Judson's child and mine coincidently as well...Children's Hospital of Los Angeles...

https://secure1.chla.org/site/Donation2?df_id=2241&mfc_pref=T&2241.donation=form1

Malina Moye is the spiritual, musical great/granddaughter of Elizabeth Cotton and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the two great female Black pioneering musicians and guitarists who lit the Rock Torch that Malina carries today. Malina continues to create and break down the barriers of rock music,  of what seven notes of music coming from a Black woman should be. Malina is those notes and she plays them as she wishes: The way her sisters did before her and because of Malina’s grit, talent, and determination, the way they will be played after her. 

Malina is featured on Bella Thorne’s new single called  Phantom coming out March 26th.  On March 20th, she will be performing in John Oates Song Festival in partnership with Feeding America. https://secure.feedingamerica.org/site/Donation2;jsessionid=00000000.app20020b?idb=1132190517&df_id=29510&mfc_pref=T&29510.donation

March 27th, Malina is on the round table for Black Women in Rock for WLP and Rock & Roll fantasy camp LA. 

Malina's new album is slated for a summer release.

If you are a football fan you know this guy!  Eben is a former offensive tackle who played six seasons in the NFL.  Selected 39th overall in the 2009 NFL Draft, Eb spent four years with the Jacksonville Jaguars followed by two with the Chicago Bears.  Britton started 23 games at right tackle, 7 at left guard, and 4 as a sixth eligible lineman, for a total of 34 career starts in 60 games played. When his football career ended, he found himself without the field that celebrated the childhood rage that took him all the way to the NFL. He had to switch gears completely and work on himself. Thru this enlightened work, Eb found his path to meditation, Cannabis advocacy, and Cannabis advocacy for athletes. 

Please check out Eb's Podcacst The Eben Flow podcasthttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-eben-flow/id1519113552 and his Meditative Tribe at www.Patreon.com/edsbritton

Ashley Scott. You know Ashley from her work from Into The Blue, Dark Angel, and Birds Of Prey and of course my favorite because we were costars...Jericho!

What you may not know is how amazing her work at being her true self is. In this episode, Ashley very honestly speaks about finding her way back to herself after two failed relationships, struggles with her career and self-esteem, and how mothering her two glorious daughters taught her to be gentle with herself. 

Ashley thanks the amazing people at The Jewish Family Services for helping her and her family. Please click the link to learn more about them and if you are so generously inclined, support their work.  https://www.jfsla.org/

Happy Listening!!!