Upcoming Events and our HerStory

Smart Mouth Goddess Society HERstory

The Smart Mouth Goddesses started in February 2003 in Houston, Texas, when Jacquie Brennan got a small group of her friends together at Pappas Seafood Kitchen and declared herself the Queen of them all. They'd all had a little wine and they knew how she was,and she DID bring them all presents, after all, so they didn't fuss much about her title. The group wore red hats and purple clothes (or pink and lavender, depending), and talked about the Red Hat Society.

Of the people who were there that first night, those who became official members are Susan Glenn, who later became the Royal Princess of Precious, Terri Richison, who later became the Princess of Far Away, and Ann Peake, who later became the Princess of Bling Bling.

In the first year, the group met at a restaurant once a month. The place and time were chosen by a different member of the group each time. We went to places like Steak N Ale, The Aquarium, Kim Son, Doneraki, and Vietopia. We were a hit everywhere we went, of course.

By August 2003, we decided we were really going to keep this idea going, so we registered our chapter with the national Red Hat Society and became "official." By this time, Susan had brought Pat (who was later crowned Royal Princess of Fashion) into the group. Ann brought her sister, Doranne, (who later became the Princess of Priss) into the group. Doranne brought Princess Ariane (aka the Queen's Bee-yatch) and Princess Chris to the group.

Our first anniversary was celebrated at Birraporetti's in February 2004. We had doubled in size and enthusiasm. Andi, who became our Royal Princess of Brilliance, joined our group that night and brought red, purple, pink, or lavendar socks for us as anniversary presents!

During our first year, we were only loosely organized. Jacquie, being a highly organized person, decided that needed to change. Luckily, many other agreed with her.

SmartMouthGoddesses.com went online that very night. Within the next couple of months, we had a Rulesmaking Party, where we, as a group, decided on various rules, including rules about membership dues, princess titles, how we pay for meals in restaurants, and charitable fundraising efforts. We set up formal mentoring relationships between Reds and Pinks. We also strongly subscribe to the "rules are made to be broken" philosophy, but some of these rules, we really wanted set in stone. The Queen Mother rules the group with an iron wand!

During our second year, we also started doing things besides just going to restaurants. We went to a movie. We had a Chicks Before Dicks Tea Party. We had a Sound of Music sing-along slumber party. We had a special tour of Nordstrom, organized by Susan, our Princess of Precious. We were invited to tea by a Red Hat chapter at an assisted living facility. We had our first service project, organized by Princess Ariane. We "adopted" a family for Christmas and furnished them with a holiday to remember.

The fall of 2004 was our most prolific breeding season. New people found us through our website. Lois, who became our Royal Princess of Royal Estates, and Carol, who became our Royal Princess of Shopping, met us at RockFish and it was love at first sight! They brought two friends -- Marilyn, who became our Royal Princess of Wisdom, and Micheline, who became our Royal Princess of Fun -- who enthusiastically joined our group. Judy, who was crowned the Royal Princess of Uncharted Waters, found a home in our group. Kaye, who had met with us a few times during our first year, rejoined our group and became the Princess of Genius. Chrissy became our newest and youngest Pink Hat, and we call her Baby Pink, and fuss over her as if she were our very own!

In January 2005, we gave birth to our first spinoff group. Carol, Lois, Micheline, and Marilyn left to form a group of their own.

In May 2005, we attended our first play as a group -- Steel Magnolias at the Alley. What fun!

In December 2005, we showered another family in need with Christmas gifts and had another wrapping party extravaganza, complete with personalized Santa hats from Angela and Katie, our first mother-daughter Goddesses.

We also had our first Royal Gathering at a retail establishment. We were pampered at The Bath Junkie!

Our third anniversary was celebrated in style with champagne, wine glasses filled with chocolate, goddess fund distributions to Ariane and Ann, gifts galore, and the gift of dinner for us all from our newest Baby Pink, Katie!

Our plan is always to have more fun, do some good things, get to know one another better, not postpone joy, embrace abundance, live with intention, walk to the edge, be extremely good to the Queen Mother, live into our crowns, and above all -- Be Particular!

In October 2006, we made the biggest decision our group had made. We decided to stop being part of the Red Hat Society and to essentially start our own society -- The Smart Mouth Goddess Society. There were lots of reasons for this decision. We loved our years in the Red Hat Society, and were proud to have been part of its growth. But it was just so popular. While that's a good thing, it isn't US. We wanted to be different and unique. We wanted to make up our own logo and purpose and rules and everything else. We talked about joining other groups, like the Blue Thong Society. Eventually, we decided that we could keep our group as it was with our same name, but without the RHS component. We didn't like the age distinctions of the RHS so we just decided to create our very own society and make it just like we wanted it.

Our 2007 was an amazing year for the Goddesses. After celebrating our fourth anniversary with an abundance (some might say an embarrassment, but we are not easily embarrassed) of presents and decadence of the highest order, we welcomed a new member to our family. Jan Whaley became the Goddess of Doing It All (and she does -- magnificently!).

We started a new tradition of answering a question at each gathering. These have produced tears and laughter, and a deepening understanding of, and connection with, each other.

We enjoyed lots of new places, including The Boom Boom Room (where we enjoyed panninis and some amazing sangria), the Strip House (where we looked better than anything on the walls!), and Gravitas (where we wore tiaras and gigantic wax lips).

Chocolate Cake Shots became a new tradition for the group when we went to Cosmos (before they turned it into something else). It was such fun. We left the Boom Boom Room, and made our way to Cosmos via car caravan. When we arrived in all our tiara-sparkling splendor, we walked in the door and headed straight to the bar. There was a little country band playing and they stopped in mid-song. The patrons stopped talking. Everyone was watching the Goddesses. Of course, that is just exactly the way we think the whole world should act so we were as happy as we could be. We, together, downed our first chocolate cake shots. We slammed the shot glasses down on the bar and demanded another just to make sure that what had just happened in our mouths was not an anomaly. Then we waltzed right out of there, whereupon life in Cosmos continued.

In the summer, the Goddesses gave a lingerie shower for the Queen Mother's daughter, Kendra, and it was dazzling in a way that only the Goddesses can make a party. In September, we gathered again for the wedding. The reception was at The Children's Museum -- and what a delicious event it was for the Goddesses (and the other 250 people we let in -- even the bride and groom!).

For the third consecutive year, in 2007, we worked with the transition program at DePelchin to share our Christmas with other families. In 2006, we brought David Borg, massage therapist to the Goddesses, to treat the moms to chair massages. In 2007, we brought Kimberly Wieberg from Slice of Life Creative Photography (the photographer to the Goddesses) to take professional photos of the moms and the children.

We celebrated our fifth anniversary in February 2008 with a fabulous evening where the magic number was 5. We all wore silver and black and at least 5 pieces of bling and sat around an extravagantly decorated table. We even sang Happy Anniversary to ourselves -- and were instantly the envy of the restaurant! The best part of the evening was when we each shared our five favorite memories of the group. For most of us, it was hard to pick just five, but it was wonderful how we each had different memories and how those memories brought different stories. It was powerful to be at the table and remember how we built this strong bond of fiercely loyal women. It is good to be reminded of what is essential and how we cannot let anything, or anybody, put asunder what our love has worked to create.