I love a good bad ass woman. A woman who goes out into the universe and makes it a better, more interesting place. I’m not talking about women who are bad. I’m talking about women who kick ass and don’t stop to take names until they’ve cleaned up and reapplied their lip gloss. These are the women who make the world go ’round. The women that our daughters need to know about and hear about and learn from.

So today I’m starting a new monthly series that I’m affectionately calling Bad Ass Babes. This series will feature some incredible women who have accomplished amazing things but aren’t exactly household names.

First up:

Ada Lovelace, computer programmer and mathematician
Also known as: The Enchantress of Numbers

Usually I wear multitasking like a bad ass badge of honor. Yes, I answered emails while carrying a whiny preschooler on my hip and navigating an extra large cart around the grocery store like a champ. Because I’m a BOSS.

Only not really.

Because, when I’m being totally honest with myself, multitasking never results in a job well done. My email will be partially incoherent, I’ll inevitably forget something essential at the store and my four year old and I will be so irritated with each other that we’ll both be whining shrilly and ready to full-on tantrum by the time I slam the trunk of the car.

When your attention is split in 87 different directions you can’t possibly do a good job.

So why do we (women in particular) place so much of our self worth on exactly how many balls we have up in the air?

You know all of those blog posts out there about what’s inside someone’s purse or diaper bag? I’ve always been inexplicably obsessed with them. I think I just really like getting behind scenes glimpses into how other people live. I totally realize that many of them are meticulously stylized or even purposefully incorporate a specific brand for a sponsored post. I still love them.

Lately I’ve been wondering what other people’s workspaces look like—especially when they work from home like I do. I want to see how they set up their space and I want to know what works and what they love about it.

I’m hoping to start a series of posts like this one, where small business owners show off the space behind their work. If you’re interested in participating, send me an email at jen@cuddlesandchaos.com.

This week I have Brianna Baker back. Last week she showed us a little behind the scenes peek at how she creates a children’s book. This week she’s showing off where she actually does her work.

It’s no secret that I have a hardcore love of children’s books, right? It’s a borderline obsession made less weird by the fact that I have two small children. But, the truth? My love for them would still be pretty freaking mighty with or without kids (check out this free printable of 30 of my favorites).

I also have a strange love of getting glimpses into the processes that go into creating things. It’s one thing to look at and appreciate a final product, but I think you understand it so much better when you get a good look at how it came to be. I thought it would be really fun to take a behind the scenes look at how one illustrator brought her kids book to life.

Brianna Baker is here to walk us through the process of putting together her children’s book, The Lion.

Totally inspired by Sophia Amoruso’s book of the same name, Girl Boss is a series focused on fierce, determined women who go with their gut and create their dream businesses in the process.

I’ve been internet buds with Tiffany from Dough and a Dear for awhile now. She’s one of those people that I can’t for the life of me remember how I connected with, but I know I can count on her social media for a nice hunk of snarky reality and some giggles. Also, I can count on her to make me drool with pictures of her pretty doughnuts. It doesn’t matter that I can’t eat them (gluten, I’m fist shaking at you!). Just looking at them makes me happy.

As Tiffany launches a Kickstarter to take her doughnut biz out of her little kitchen and into a secondhand food truck, I thought it would be a great time to take a look at a total boss as she tries to uplevel her dream.