Our Mother, Sharon Couto

We are sisters, Audrey McClelland (age 28) and Jane Porricelli (age 26), who are sending you our take on the special woman in our lives - our mother, Sharon Couto.

We are not only best friends with our Mom, but all three of us work together and own our own company together!

Ever since we can remember, people have always asked us how we got along so well with our Mom (even throughout the teenage years)! And this is especially true since the founding of our company Pinks & Blues, which we began because of our common interests of entrepreneurship, writing and family - and, quite literally, we wanted to work together!!

We truly have given our fabulous relationship together a great deal of thought, because since the beginning we have had such love and awe and respect for each other, while many moms and daughters we knew were having such difficulties with each other.

Our mother is a retired high school English and Reading teacher who was the first woman in her extended family to attend college. She waitressed her way through college and instilled in us, her daughters, the value and importance of reading and education.

She taught economically and socially disadvantaged students for 30 years and never hesitated to interact with these kids at basketball games, dances and proms, the theater program she started, creative writing groups she headed - anything to give them a societal edge.

This fused within us such a delight in watching our mom's happiness when sharing and giving. And a wonderful byproduct was our love of learning.

My mother taught us and her students the importance of maintaining the earth, planting gardens and recycling when no one else did!!

She plans social events for her 7 grandchildren - tea parties, baking nights, special trips to the theater, to the zoo, to Boston... all to teach positive social messages that help shape their inner confidence and desire to learn to help others and the environment.

She taught us to love and respect animals, and we have always had four-legged members of our family to nurture, love and protect (and feel protected from)!

She taught us to give back - whether volunteering at Thanksgiving Day homeless shelters, walking animals at pet shelters, helping at Special Olympics events, clothing drives and donations to women's collaboratives, tutoring children in ESL and literacy programs.

My sister and I were both fortunate enough to have received our education at Brown University (me in Theatre, Speech and Dance and my sister Jane in History), and as adults we were drawn to our mom in her retirement to work together!

We have written a book together, Preconception Plain & Simple - A Deliciously Sexy Guide In Preparing For Pregnancy, to promote healthy babies and healthy bodies, we are Contributors to Conceive Magazine, we run our daily blog, Pinks & Blues from our home office at our mom's house, and we share a personal blog where we write about our lives and discuss business, kids, babies, dogs, husbands... life in general!

And now that us daugthers are grown up and married, with families of our own, my mom has even developed a list of 10 QUICK RULES FOR RAISING DAUGHTERS WHO WANT YOU IN THEIR LIVES AS KIDS, TEENAGERS and ADULTS, which she has begun to post on our blog - pinksandbluesgirls.wordpress.com!

And beyond working together (and even writing the book together!), we do discuss everything - Grey's Anatomy, Dancing With the Stars, American Idol, The Food Network... we share our political views (often different, but always provocative!), we share the same clothes, we make mom/daugthers once-a-week dinner dates (without the husbands and kids!)... we discuss our marriages and our children... and our Mom has turned into the best Grandma in the world! We always have a bunch of laughs!

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The founders of Pinks & Blues (www.pinksandblues.com), Sharon Couto, Audrey McClelland and Jane Porricelli are a mom and two daughters who have a blast together, every day, finding fabulous products and services to blog about. Sharon is a retired high school English/Reading teacher. Audrey is a Brown University graduate who worked for Donna Karan International in NYC and returned to RI raise her boys and expand Pinks & Blues. Jane is also a Brown University graduate who left a sales position in the printing industry to develop Pinks & Blues. They also have a personal blog at pinksandbluesgirls.wordpress.com.