: About Me

More than 25 years ago I walked into my hometown newspaper to take the job I had dreamed about since a college English teacher told me I had a flare for writing. Since that time, as a community journalist with three different newspapers, I've heard and told the stories of thousands of people. My most memorable: weeping at the kitchen table with the parents of a boy killed in Iraq; helping a former welfare mom who gave up her children decades ago reconnect with the one son she hadn't found; visiting a home under construction with a man in a wheelchair who was paralyzed two years earlier in a fall while working on that dream home; the traced hands of a 2-year-old dying of cancer while I talked with his mom in their mobile home; visiting a couple married 60 years on a rainy morning; talking with the wife of murder victim who appreciated my compassion in handling the story of her husband's affair.

In 2007, my lifelong love of dogs inspired me to open a boarding kennel where I've met people and their pets and begun offering training and diet tips. I also expanded that to offer individual and group training and behavior tips in group and individual sessions.

In January, I was laid off from my newspaper job, but I still have stories to tell and a wealth of information and experience to draw on. While I consider my options, I'm still writing. Whatever I do with the next phase of life, that's a constant.

My passion is ...

helping people and dogs have happier relationships

I know too much about ...

everything in my community

My parents always told me ...

to appreciate my heritage

My childhood ambition ...

having lots of dogs

My favorite memory ...

standing on a windswept knoll with my first dog waiting for a thunderstorm to roll in

Why I write ...

I can't stop myself

My first job ...

Kentucky Fried Chicken

My best moment ...

getting laid off so that I have to do something else

Parenting & Pregnancy > Problems Parents Face Single parents: Tips for taking care of yourself too

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Raising children without a spouse presents parents with a unique set of challenges, not only in taking care of their children on a day to day basis, but, equally importantly, in taking care of their own needs. The first barrier many parents have to overcome when it concerns their own needs is their willingness to give them any importance. Especially in the case of divorce a parent may feel guilty about why their children are living with only one parent, and so discount their own needs. Other parents may face similar concerns, seeing the needs of their children as more important and therefo...

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