Where to start? My birthdate is July 19th, 1962 and I'm married with two grown children and I'm blessed with one grandchild who is a a little doll. Little isn't really the right description for giant baby as my family calls her. She is two and a half and is three feet tall and thirty-three pounds. She's mute but can hear and is I think greatly intelligent. Grandma's bragging rights!

My son is an English teacher in China at a mountain range high school and also at a university. He has a master's degree in computer animation. My daughter works as a debt collector and is a single parent. I am married to a truck driver who finally came off the road. Now he works twelve hour shifts as a shag driver for John Deere interplants and is home every night. It's hard to get used to after so many years of him being over the road.

I worked for fifteen years in the restaurant field and then five years in the insurance industry. I have always wanted to further my career as a writer but raising the kids, working outside the home and life in general kept getting in the way until a just a few years ago. I have been in the newspapers for small articles I have written over the years and just within the last couple of years I wrote my first novel entitled In Yawheh's Hands about a man falsely accused of child molestation and the devestating consequences to himself and his family. It was published by Publish America but after finding an agent I pulled its rights from the contract and I'm recvising it for a new publisher. I am currently working on a horror novel at the moment and then plan to revise my previous novel. I won the Editors Choice Award from Poetry.com for the poem Sea of Grief that is about the emotions I went through after losing my father to heart and lung failure after he survived a coma.

I live in the beautiful state of Iowa where the corn and beans stretch sometimes for miles and I love to watch the hills turn all golden in the fall. I like to fish, don't care much for hunting. Don't get me wrong, I like deer meat but I just can't bring myself to shoot one. I just love their eyes, I couldn't shoot something that is looking at me like that. I am a cat person. I have two myself that share my house and will probably earn the name of cat lady in my neighborhood when I get really relly old. I feed all the stray cats and they have a network you know.

My hobbies are simple. I like to crochet just about anything as long as it isn't really small stuff, I end up with knots. I am trying to like puzzles but so far I'd prefer to throw the puzzle on the floor and jump up and down on it. I read alot and just about anything I can get my hands on. At my local library they don't even ask for my card anymore. I like to garden, vegetables or flowers. One day I would like to put in a lily pond complete with fish.

I have two older brothers, a younger sister and one younger brother plus a half sister. My mother is still living but my father passed away in 1999. I've been to college twice and when I get bored or start feeling out of date I like to enroll again. I like being around other people of different ages, different cultures and walks of life to help me grow as a person.

My passion is ...

reading

I know too much about ...

cooking

My parents always told me ...

if you can't beat fair and square take a stick to even the odds cause there is no such thing as a fair fight.

My childhood ambition ...

I wanted to be a vetrinarian.

My favorite memory ...

Fishing with my Dad and watching him grab my little brother by the seat of his pants and seat him back on the bridge over the creek when a fish pulled him over the side.

Why I write ...

It relieves the pressurs of every day life and helps me get my feelings out.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

the absolute silence of my house and silence really can be golden.

My first job ...

hoeing beans when I was twelve.

My best moment ...

Greeting my son as he came home from Iraq after fourteen months during the start of the war.

My inspiration ...

my late father, he was my world and it has gotten smaller without him.

Travel > Travel Planning & Advice Day trips to enjoy the fall foliage

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I've lived in Western Iowa near the scenic byway for the historic Loess Hills most of my fourty-six years. The Fall effects of the leaves changing to autumn colors is spectacular. State Parks are found throughout the hills overlooking beautiful views of hill sides, valleys, streams and cliff sides with trails, picnic areas and playgrounds.

I came up with an idea to turn our nature walk into a fun family outing that everyone could take part in regardless of ages. On our walk we took a small beach pail for each child. One pail we placed small colorful stones and rocks we found along ...

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