"Write everything down. Keep a journal.
Take more pictures." ~Nora Ephron
I was born in Glendora, California in 1961. My family moved so often that making friends with books was easier than making friends with real kids. I could carry a book wherever I went but I always had to leave the other kids behind when we moved.
I was obsessed with horses and my two favorite books were Walter Farley’s The Black Stallion and Marguerite Henry’s Misty of Chincoteague. I used to imagine that the Black Stallion was mine and he followed me every where we went. No matter how far or how fast we went, he had the courage and strength to be there when we reached our destination.
At the age of 8 my parents gave me a little Kodak Instamatic camera for 
Christmas. I’ve been shooting ever since. In the early years, I took pictures of anything and everything. I wasted a lot of film on shots that I still don’t know why I ever depressed the shutter button. Luckily today I shoot digital. I still may take the ‘who knows’ shots but all I’m wasting is pixel space.
In June 1996 while on the way to a party for a bunch of IRC chat buddies I met a man with a great smile and wondered to myself who he was. When I found out I was less than impressed. Frankly, I thought he was a bit of a jerk when we had previously chatted online. Over the next several months I saw Don and his 
kids, Steven and Sarah, at different chat parties and I started to like him. In person, he wasn’t the jerk I thought he was online. Knowing that I like archaeology, Don asked if I would like to go to Toltec Mounds State Park for the September equinox events that they had going on. I jumped at the chance but we ended up going to a movie instead because I had a problem with my foot flair up and couldn’t walk very well. Our first and only ‘official’ date was September 19, 1996. We’ve been together ever since.
We got married in May 1997 and settled down to a quiet life in the suburbs, well as quiet as it can be with two kids in the house. In September 1997 I found out I was pregnant. Doctors had always told me that 1) I would never get pregnant & 2) if I did I would never carry to full term. Not only did I get pregnant, I carried the baby to full term and he actually had to be evicted. Sean was born by c-section the next May.
It hasn’t always been easy and we have endured many bumps and bruises through the years but Don and I have now been married thirteen years. Steven has gotten married, Sarah is in college and Sean, the comedian of the family, is 12. We live in a suburb of Little Rock, Arkansas along with our two goofy dogs, Gunner and Bandit, and one freaked out cat, Tigress (aka Fat Cat).
