My name is Cindy Maddera, and I've had this blog for many many years, but I'm just now sitting down and writing an About Me page for it. I perused around the internet looking at "about me" pages from some of my favorite bloggers, trying to inspire a witty little about me page of my own, but this turned out to be a horrendously bad idea. They had all of these totally amazing accomplishments listed, and blogging awards, and one of them was even mentioned in Forbes. Gah!

I'm a small-town blogger with a small-town blog with low expectations. Several people have asked me why I named it Elephant Soap. There are a couple of reasons. First of all, that domain name was available. I also love and collect elephants, and the blog started out as my soap box. Put this all together and there you have it. 

My husband Chris, our muppet dog Hooper and I up and moved from our small town to the slightly larger town of Kansas City in 2011 so I could work doing my dream job of playing with fancy pants microscopes. We all had an amazing year exploring a new place and buying our first house. Then Chris got sick and died (sounds crass, but really it's the easiest way to say it). About eight months after Chris, I had to let Hooper go too. For a little while, it was just me, navigating widowhood. I experimented with online dating. I met Michael, who lives with me. He has a kid we call the Cabbage who sometimes stays at our house. We have a crazy dog named Josephine, a killer cat named Albus and a quartet of chickens: Matilde, Margarette, Dorthy and Foghorn. 

I do a lot of yoga and teach some yoga. I take a lot of pictures and write some words. I write about navigating grief and new love. I write about being a step mom and teaching yoga. I write about our camping adventures and I write about gratitude.

Namaste, y'all.