About Me: The Long Version

The Bare Bones
A daughter of Free Methodist missionaries, I grew up in the Dominican Republic. I attended high school in Arizona and college in Los Angeles and Illinois. I was married for 23 years during which we reared our son, Mark. Mark is now an accountant living in Lexington, Kentucky, with his wife, Heidi, and two children, Nikki and Connor.

During my 31-year career in the public schools, I taught high school math and science; 5th grade; and junior high math, health, life skills, and an assortment of other subjects. In 2005, I retired early to pursue a writing career.

Interests
Travel was part of growing up. Today I have built-in opportunities for road trips when I visit my far-flung family. Gardening and hiking are right up there, too, on my list of “likes,” but my favorite hobby of all is reading.

I enjoy creating things. As a child I was not keen on playing with dolls unless it involved something like making dresses for them. As a teen and young adult, I made a lot of my own clothes and always had a needlework project going. Today my creations run in the direction of computer-generated photo collages and writing projects—which is surprising because, when I was in school, I dreaded writing assignments. Today the ideas come so thick and fast that I jot them down—pretty much daily—in computer files.

Love for the Bible
Bible reading and study were part of our family life. I can remember lying on the bed with my sister on a Sunday morning, each of us reading our Bibles—and laughing together about quaint phrases in the King James Version. When I was in high school, my father taught the book of Matthew in the youth Sunday school class, because it was the only gospel not already in the Nogales Bible School curriculum. I immediately did an inductive study of the gospel of John on my own, and have loved studying the Bible ever since. Recently, I have taken a number of classes at Midwest Bible School in Lincoln, Illinois, where I discovered that I could write forever about God’s awesome Word.


My Passion
A teacher at heart, I enjoy learning about and teaching a wide range of subjects. However, the key purpose and greatest joy of teaching, for me, is sharing with others any insight or skill that can improve the quality of their lives. So I derived great satisfaction from making math less mysterious for my students, and even more fulfillment from the opportunity to instill wisdom in young people through health and life skills classes. Although retired from public schools, I am still immersed in teaching—writing a curriculum for my church’s nursery children, leading a Bible study, encouraging people of all ages, and writing to promote personal growth and the "abundant life" that Jesus came to offer.