About Me

Part of the following is on my website, but not my blogs so I'm posting this here.  I'll try to be brief, but I'm not sure I always know the meaning of that word.  It's very hard for me to keep anything short.

I was born in Houston, Texas.  I spent most of my life on the farm south of there except for the summer I spent with my grandmother in southern California.  That summer instilled in me the desire to move there, which I did later in my adult years.  This was after I spent five years in Alaska and two years in Oregon.

I’m the oldest of seven children, playing the role of teacher and advisor to my siblings as we were growing up.  I was forever the artist, as I was drawing from the time I could hold a pencil.  My role, as the oldest, was also that of storyteller and game creator, or simply the paper doll maker as we constantly looked for things to keep us occupied.

I was also interested in art and, for me, it was the reason to get up and go to school, once I entered my high school years.  During this time and in my early twenties, I’ve worked in all art mediums and have an oil painting depicting a fall/winter scene still hanging in my high school library.

As I grew older, I began working with textile arts, selling my work at street fairs.  While living in southern California, I had a Gyotaku art piece hanging in a gallery during a juried art exhibit.  For those of you who may not know, Gyotaku is the art of Japanese fish printing.  Various types of fabric, or paper, are generally the choices for this type of artwork.  I was thrilled to receive the award for most original in this exhibit.  I named my piece Faces in the Deep and used real fish heads that I collected from a seafood market/restaurant on the coast.  I also went in search of real seaweed ad kelp off the San Diego coast.  Unbelievably, I still have these fish heads and some tropical fish frozen in my freezer.  I used the tropical fish for smaller clothing pieces I sold at the street fairs, along with authentic tie-dye clothing that I sewed and dyed myself.

Yes, I moved my fish from California to the desert using dry ice.  I hate to part with any of my art supplies because I’m not dead yet.  Someday inspiration may strike me and I’ll want to use these things again.  I’m not sure I’m ready to go around to the tropical fish stores and collect all these wonderful specimens when I received strange looks the first time around.

Also during this time, I joined a writer’s group and began to take my writing seriously.  I’m always working on a story of some kind, if I’m not reading, sewing, or into some other creative endeavor, like making my own beads by melting glass using a torch.  Even then, I may be working a scene out in my head for my current WIP.

My office is filled with books, and I’m a collector of faeries and cat figurines.  They sit on my selves among my volumes and inspire me to write magical tales filled with wizards, witches, ghosts, faeries and talking animals.

Lately, I’m inspired to write mystery books, my second favorite genre to read.  The first book is with an editor and I’m doing rewrites utilizing some of her suggestions.  The sequel is almost finished, but then will go through the editing process, so it’ll be a while before this book is available to read.  I’ll be publishing the first mystery sometime in 2014, I hope.  Realistically, it will probably be sometime in 2015.

I left California in late summer 2004 and am now living in the desert with my husband and enjoying all the scenery and wildlife the desert has to offer right in my own backyard.  California, however, will always hold a special place in my heart.

When we moved here, we ended up with six cats after finding a baby hurt under my car early one morning.  We brought five with us.  We’re now down to two.  I’m such a cat lover that maybe it’s a good thing the desert is such a harsh place to live because we haven’t had any new ones venture by that needed to be rescued.  I stay away from the local animal shelter because it would be too tempting to bring another one home.

Oh my gosh!  And then what happened?  I had to look at Craigslist and found a beautiful baby boy only three-months-old.  How could I resist that?  Of course this one is a rescue too - coming from PAWS this time.  He purred so loud before I even touched him and then crawled all over me nestling into my shoulder and rubbing my face.  How could I possibly leave him there after all that?  So now I have a little man in the house again.

I know I'll be one of those old ladies with cats all around and probably not much else someday.

The desert has its extremes and the hot and cold are getting to both of us, so we’ll be putting our house on the market in the spring and moving to a milder climate, we hope.  Ten years is enough.  I need a little moisture in my life at this stage.  It’s usually about ten to twelve percent humidity here.  Many times, I’ve wished for a lotion factory in the backyard.

We’ve enjoyed our time here among the red carved rocks and the old black lava flows from dormant volcanoes.  We’ve had the luxury to watch the amazing assortment of wildlife that happens by because the whole desert is our backyard.  There’s nothing but rocks, cactus, and sagebrush back there.  Sometimes, I think I’m watching a film right out of National Geographic from my back patio.

I’m not sure exactly where we’re heading next, as we’ve looked at the entire lower part of the US all across the map.  Many things are a consideration aside from location, such as affordability, taxes and insurance rates, to mention a few.  The weather is a big concern.  I’m getting to old to rush out and cover plants all the time in the middle of winter when they come uncovered because of all the wind we get here.  Yes, I guess I’m a wimp in this department, but after my years in Alaska and Oregon, I’ve had enough cold weather to last a lifetime.

When you live on a fixed income expenses are especially important, although I hope to pick up part-time work once we’re settled into a new location.  It’s not that I have all this extra time to fill, but I want to offset everyday expenditures and hoping the area will be more welcoming to hiring someone my age.  Time will tell.

Right now, my choices are going back to southern CA, which I don’t think will be affordable, or going to Texas to be closer to my family, as my mother’s having some health issues.  I also think it’d be nice to be closer to my sisters, so we can still do things together before we’re all to old to do anything except sit in our rockers and reminisce about the old days.

Naturally my husband doesn't want to be that close to my family, so we're also exploring other areas in the south.  We all "talk and laugh too much" and it will drive him crazy, he says.

We never know where life will lead us.  I’m trying to stay upbeat about this new adventure.  I do believe we make our own happiness and will draw positive things toward us, if we have an optimistic outlook.

I hope you’ll enjoy some of the stories on my blog.  I use this one for everyday life, my cats, old family stories, and sometimes the occasional rant about something.