Four tips I learned in finishing school (HA! DID I JUST TYPE THAT?!), that I’d like to pass along to my kidlets:

1. Ballroom Dancing: The Ode to Commander Unander. Every Friday night my brother and I would go to a hall with other kids in my neighborhood in our dressy clothes. I’d say it was itchy and uncomfortable, but actually, I liked wearing the dresses (below the knee), having my hair done nicely and wearing tiny high heels. The only thing I didn’t really like was the gloves. White gloves aren’t really becoming on anyone, especially on a girl like me with hands like Shaq.  Over several years we learned to dance ballroom with a strict, old, washed-up ballroom dancer. “Commander Unander” and his shiny black tuxedo shoes swept me across the room like a feather. I loved it. Learning to dance ballroom was a wonderful gift — I can still walz and foxtrot my way through any wedding reception without wrapping my arms around my date like a drunk prom girl.

2. Table Top Knowledge: AKA Why do I have three forks? I can remember sitting at a fellow manners freak parents’ house for table training. It looked like a dishwasher exploded in front of me, but in truth, it was pretty easy to decipher after just a few times of practice. When in doubt, work from outside by course with your utensils, unless you don’t, then the waiter is likely to save you. Just don’t use the same utensil for multiple courses or take it off the plate and put it on the table (that was the kiss of manners death). It was more than napkins on laps though. A lot of what we learned here was subtle: don’t push a plate away from you, use the butter knife to put butter on plate not on bread, drinks go on the right. So far we’ve got the kids setting the table for dinner as a first step.

3. Host Management: Don’t Bite the Hand that Feeds. As a kid, my parents took me everywhere — from dinner parties to galas. There’s only one whale at any soiree: the hostess. Once you get the gist that it’s all about paying respect to her, you’ve got it made. Bring a gift (Not flowers or food, but instead a small gift  like a homemade card from kids or special soaps); look in her eye, give her a compliment about her home or food; and most of all, don’t do anything without the hostess doing it first. By that I mean don’t put any food in your mouth until she has. Neeeeevvver.

4. Food: Not See-Food. I don’t think I ever chewed a piece of food with my mouth open. I never remember doing it, anyway. My son, Thing 1, has never breached the open mouth gap, either. My dear Thing 2, however, is a see-food eater. Oh man, the battle. One thing I remember learning was a sure-fire way to help curb this food nightmare was to tell the kids to take very small bites. It helps, but it’s not full-proof. Counting to 10 while chewing is another trick. I’m all about learning opportunities, but this one I have no tolerance for. Chew with your mouth closed or don’t sit at my table.

I’ve come to understand that it’s not popular to teach etiquette to children in 2011 — I guess it comes off as snobby or wanna-be high class. I see it differently than that. I spent eight years as a kid going through manners training and in the end, I apply more of it today than most of high school classes put together. I want my kids to grow up with tools that will carry them from the house down the street to The White House and every little cottage along the way.

This post was inspired by the smarty pants team at the Yahoo! Motherboard. (#ymotherboard)

I’ve used code names for my kids and self for years. I worked hard to keep my LinkedIn separate from my blog. I put my online personas into buckets: Facebook/LinkedIn in one bucket; Blog and Twitter and Flickr in another bucket. I went so far as to set search alerts for my name with my user names and cross reference the searches with my kids names — all for the sake of being both transparent and private. But somewhere along the way, the web got smarter than me. Oh, it just took one link to here or there, one re-tweet, one comment that used my real name to put it all together. Mark 2010 as the year that the Internet truly began to never forget.

The biggest problem with working in online communities has always been transparency — both the lack of it, the strive for it and the freakout when it comes to pass. It’s true that most people I know online know me as Garza Girl, and when I introduce myself I expect the blank stares, but as soon as I use my online name, the recognition comes. But the yucky side of that is that if you know me online, you know my dirt, because it is there in the cloud, where I, like so many others, have the false security that I’m writing anonymously. Transparency as we know it is dead because if it has to be staged, hidden behind user names and goofy profile pictures, then it’s not really transparent. Online transparency has a new norm: bare all or someone else will.

My someone else day has arrived.

I’ve been selected to be one of 15 iVoices for NBC/Universal’s iVillage. This means attaching my real name to my real face to my real life. This means being a face of a two-mommy family. This means the world will know that I feed my kids organically to prevent my daughter from having early puberty. This means that my crossed-eyes can’t be hidden. It means being transparent about my opinions on parenting to the world, not just in my backyard between like-minded friends. It means my exes — from the super insane thief to the one that got away — will be able to access me in all my 10-lb weight gain glory.

This move toward transparency also means that I will be able to work on stories that I am passionate about. It means I will put my image fears to the forefront of challenging myself to look in the mirror and into the camera. It means I’ll be able to offer a peek at what it’s like to be a two-mommy family. Being transparent means I’ll have to keep myself in check (can’t rant at the kid’s teacher anymore), keep other’s privacy in check, keep myself open to failure when it comes. It means, above all, that I’ll be living externally and that my role is to ensure I’m living that same life privately — the best I possibly can.

It’s not that I’m adverse to church, or synagogue or any other form of religious faith. It’s that I’m not sure how to steer my family toward a life that includes a faith-based day and uncertain that I have the drive to commit to it for the long haul. I keep telling myself, If one-quarter of Americans can do it, so can I, right?

An ongoing Gallup Poll research study suggests that about 40 percent of Americans attend some kind of religious services, while nearly 10 percent consider themselves faithful but rarely show up for services. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (a dang interesting resource for information) demonstrates that geography and type of faith guide how often people attend religious services and the more urban, the lower the percentage of attendees. Again, I find myself just a statistic.

Recently, the Catholic church has gone on a get-butts-in-seats media blitz asking its faithful to return to regular services.The problem is, ditching Church is not a sin. If it ain’t a sin, I’m pretty certain my spouse would pick watching the Raiders get pummeled over a couple beers than go to Church.

But my issue isn’t faith, my issue is logistics. A mom’s job sucks sometimes. How do I convince my children that getting out of their P.J.s and foregoing homemade pancakes with warm syrup in order to go to church is a good idea? Worse, I’ve got to somehow guilt my spouse into thinking that we are simply going to ruin our children if we don’t go to church; that we alone cannot be moral guides enough, they need to attend services. I guess I could tell her that52 percent of California children attend weekly services. But she might come right back at me with the fact that California ranks in the bottom 20 states when it comes to children attending regular religious services.

Oh man, how am I — as the self-appointed Board of Directors, Faith Inc. of our home — supposed to get my brood to church when I am not sure I’m buying it either? Another cup of coffee sounds pretty fricking good right about now.

I was raised Catholic, attending some form of Mass daily. I didn’t mind it at all. We have a faithful home and I’ve got a tramp-stamp to prove it. But life with kids always seems disjointed between nap and school schedules, sporting events, community events, and friends and family obligations. Suddenly Sunday seems sacred — and not in the church-going sense.

Then again, all of the obligations of life with kids could go away and I still am not sure I have it in me to pull my family out of their comfy Sunday morning to learn more, be taught more, not fidget in their seats more, be good girl/good boy any more. It’s Sunday and mommy thinks it’s time to chill.

“In my wheelhouse”

What it means: What you are describing is what I have experience in.

Previous passe synonyms: “in my arsenal;” “right up my alley”

Why: Are you a train engineer? Do you ride choo-choos? Unless you are working on the chain gang, you have no business using this wildly over-used phrase.

Possible replacement: I have strong experience in this area.

Not possible replacement: I rock that shit.

“Social media guru”

What it means: I work in social media.

Previous passe synonyms: “community ninja;” “online whiz” or “social media expert”

Why: No one, but no one is a social media guru. Guru is reserved for spiritual leaders and maybe your yoga instrutor, not to self-describe your work online.

Possible replacement: “online marketer;” “social public relations”

Not possible replacement: “Hopeless online addict”

“Under the hood”

What it means: Investigate this topic further.

Previous passe synonyms: “into the nitty gritty;” “deep dive”

Why: Are you a mechanic? Mechanics are hot and greasy and work for near-minimum wage.

Possible replacement: “I’d like to research this topic further;” “understand the details”

Not possible replacement: “Under your hoodie”

“Signal to Noise”

What it means: Putting the highest quality to the forefront

Previous passe synonyms: “Cream of the crop;” “Streamline”

Why: Because you are not a radio. And if you are a marketer, you should assume that balancing communication directives are part of the job.

Possible replacement: “Clean communication;” “high quality coverage”

Not possible replacement: “Cut the crap”

“Close the loop”

What it means: Check with other people relavent to the subject to ensure you have completed the task and its needs

Previous passe synonyms: “circle back around;” “touch base with”

Why: Because you are a not a knitter.

Possible replacement: “Complete the process”

Not possible replacement: “Cover my ass”