Girls Guide to the Galaxy isn’t your mother’s Martha Stewart or Oprah. It is a collection of articles, essays and opinions with edge, sass and style written about, for and by St. Louis women. We are all blog-o-holics who live, work and play in the Gateway City, and, despite popular opinions, we do not raise farm animals, nor do we know how to flash gang signs. If you are looking for a perfect parent’s blog or how to decorate your house with doilies you have reached this blog in error; please learn to use Google better.

Meet The Editors…

Melody Meiners – Founder & Managing Editor lives in St. Louis with her dog, Sasha, and the Mister (read: husband). They are a typical thirty-something couple: working, playing, and trying to figure out why pizza has gotten so expensive. By day she is a freelance writer and interactive media strategist, and by night she is a partner and blogger at STLFamilyLife.com and on her personal blog, MrsSmartyPants.com.

Melody grew up in a far-flung suburb of St. Louis listening to David Bowie (and will bet a dollar she is the biggest fan evah!) and grunge rock; dying her hair blue and wearing flannel for a stint in high school, and leaving soccer practice to shop at the Gap during another. Such were the ’90’s. During college she was a DJ because she is the only one in her family with ZERO musical talent and, thus, couldn’t be in a band. Instead, she got paid to play CD’s made by people far more talented than she, and worked on her college paper as the Entertainment Editor interviewing said people.

Annie – Sports & Fitness Editor hates writing about herself in third person so this is the only time you will ever (EVER) see her do it, unless she’s making fun of someone else. She has been playing sports since the age of four and has no intent to ever stop. She has a pretty sweet working knowledge of general nutrition and fitness as she’s been diabetic since the age of four. She knew the glycemic index before the Adkins/South Beach craze! However, she cannot seem to use her own knowledge to help herself, as she has about ten pounds she’d like to shed before heading to the lake in June.

Kim “The Good Buy Girl” Schlau – Fashion & Beauty Editor is The Good Buy Girl. She will bring you the current fashion trends and offer beauty and fashion advice, all geared toward a working girl’s budget.

Kim  is a paralegal by trade, writer by choice. Her main blog, Parachuting Without a Net, started out as a lunch-hour diversion, but after several personal tragedies, became a form of therapy. Sometimes poignant, often humourous, and always honest, Kim writes about her life with a voice that many can relate to.

Currently, Kim and her husband, Craig, live in Collinsville with her daughter, Madelyn, and their two dogs. She maintains a website dedicated to her daughters, Jessica and Kelli Uhl, blogged about her wedding at Marriage 3.0, and serves as Outreach Director of the St. Louis Bloggers Guild.

Holly Schroeder – Arts Editor This child of a quirky painter was born with a glue gun in her hand and has been making messes ever since. Holly snaps photos, makes jewelry, whips up kitchy fun on her Singer, and channels her inner granny to knit and crochet toasty scarves for her online shop www.southcitystudio.etsy.com . She’s also a member of Show Me Etsy and the St. Louis Craft Mafia. She peddles her wares around town at various art and crafts shows. Monday through Friday you’ll find her hanging out with college kids at Washington University where she plays the role of office girl. Holly is mama to an Irish-dancing, sometimes-surly teenager and Food Lady to a crew of furry mascots – Mr. Wobbles, Sebastian and Mackie the Wonder Dog.

Danielle Hohmeier – TV & Movies Editor dubbed ‘TV Land’ by her friends, Danielle is ready (and more than willing) to share her seemingly useless knowledge with the world. She probably spends at least fifteen hours a week watching television, and loves every minute of it. When the tube is filled with repeats and/or Leno, she is a regular at her neighborhood Redbox catching up on the flicks she never made it to the theater to see. A self-proclaimed addict, she blogs about her obsession at Addicted to Television (daniellestvaddiction.blogspot.com), and spends the rest of her time reading TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly.

She is pure Saint Louis, residing in South County in the same yellow two-story her Dad grew up in. She loves her Mizzou Tigers, Lindbergh Flyers, and St .Louis Cards and Blues (Rams? Eh, jury’s still out on that one). She is single (for now) and often wonders if she only has room for one man in her life- her lab/chow mix Maverick.

Carlie Bliss Irwin – Food & Drink Editor only took this gig so she could have an excuse to eat and drink more. Actually, her love of writing closely rivals her love of gorging herself, so this is working out pretty well. She is more than happy to visit new restaurants, moonlight as a barfly, and sample new culinary trends all in the name of letting you know what tastes good. Because really, she’d be doing all of that anyway.

Carlie works as a developmental editor on nursing textbooks and lives in Richmond Heights with her husband and their pseudo-child, Gatsby, a 5-pound toy fox terrier. Gatsby pretty much runs the show, so they spend a lot of their free time taking him for walks and snuggling with him on the couch. When she isn’t acquiescing to the demands of her dog, job, or husband (listed in order of their demandy-ness), Carlie can be found watching reality TV, shopping online, enjoying a glass of wine, convincing her husband that they need to go on another vacation, tweeting, and wishing she had more time to read novels. She has also been on a fitness kick lately, but we’ll see how long that lasts.

Meet Our Contributors…

Lisa Bertrand – Lisa’s foray into the world of website writing began when she started little blog about parenting called Midwestern Mommy which was later renamed MotherOfBun. Since that time she has been writing for various parenting websites and manages product review campaigns for the Parent Bloggers Network. Currently, Lisa also serves as a the Co-Director of Membership and as a contributor for St. Louis Bloggers Guild. This summer she also launched a site about St. Louis Family Life.

Lisa likes to get out with her rowdy women friends or her hubby as often as possible. She is convinced that a regular intake of live music, great food, martinis and dancing will cure whatever ails ya. Well, at least for an evening.

Lisa lives in west county with the hubby, their son and cranky old lady dog.