About me

It’s true. I talk too much. I also laugh too loud, and even my hiccups are a bit obnoxious. I’m a passionate communicator, an advocate for those without a voice, and a generalist fascinated with learning more about everything from archaeology to current events to dance and cooking.

This blog is sometimes funny, sometimes serious, and frequently in violation of the grammar rules I should have learned in middle school. I start too many sentences with “And” or “But”, and I enjoy a good run-on sentence when used for dramatic purpose.

I love Adventures, doing and seeing things in a new way. I want to pack 16 hours worth of activities in an 8-hour day, and 85% of the time, it all works out beautifully for me and everyone I’ve dragged along with me. (What other 15%? La, la, la, I can’t hear you……)

I grew up in Alaska, went to college and grad school in Texas, and settled with my amazing husband right in between.  I am a proud Oregonian and resident of the Pacific Northwest with the mossy glow to my pallor to prove it.

I am the proud mother of three boisterous, weapons-obsessed and sweet-in-their-own-ways boys – 15, 13, and 10. I am trying to parent them skillfully, which in my book includes the practice of Over-Analyzing Parental Decisions, Parenting by Volume, and lessons on Being Kind, Helping Others, Always Flushing and How to Know When You’ve Pushed Mommy Too Far and You Should Really Calm Down Right NOW.

I am sometimes an advocate, sometimes a nag and always a primary family member/maternal unit for three nieces who live with mental illness and the scars of a rough childhood. I used to sometimes be a foster mom, too.

I am a thoughtful modern Christian woman who watches a lot of TV, and I’m not ashamed of it. A great TV show is an achievement in visual story telling that allows us access to our most human emotions and ambitions. I struggle with an addiction to magazines, and the USPS loves me. I love to read books, but that requires such a discipline of time-finding that they better be good books, books that make me cry or laugh or swoon or wish I wasn’t reading them on a night my husband is out and the house is making creepy squeaky noises. If I could, I would go to the movies almost every day.

After a professional career in nonprofit management, extended family obligations led to an adventure as a stay at home mom. Me, a SAHM. Still boggles the mind, but there you have it. I also founded a conference for churches on mental health, called Shattering Stigma with Stories. I speak at, produce and facilitate the conference wherever communities of faith will have me. I’m also a writer, comedian and speaker, cause I have stuff to say. Or at least to share.

Through it all, woven in and out and in-between, I am trying to be a faithful child of God, building my life on trust and faith in Jesus Christ. At the end of the day, I hope I’m less like me, and more like Him.