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Art:

  

My first paying work (after the cartoon knockoffs of my childhood to family and friends) was as a landscape artist. Over the years I've experimented with surface design, sculpture, mold making, illustration and portraiture, with some avenues more fun or successful than others. I get bored easily, just like most creative people. 

 

For a few years I painted portraits of professional athletes. It was a money-maker, but I'm not a sports fan. The best parts were the art process, the jealousy on my husband's face as I sat next to famous athletes at card shows, and getting paid. (There was a payoff for the hubby--he often got to sit with the athlete's wives and got the inside scoup on their private lives.) 

 

My art work has been applied to ceramic tile, dinnerware, lighting, and gift ware. At one point I produced a line of ceramic and cold cast designs. My Christmas angel ornaments were used by the White House as special gifts in 1994. For this I got bragging rights and nothing else. 

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Writing:
  

I was Co-Founder and Senior Editor for the student publication J.A.M. Magazine from 1997-2000, from which our non-profit, Lifewerks was born.

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A combined background in the print industry, art, writing, and horticulture/gardening lead to the creation of a series of garden journals, (found under the Books tab.) 

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The garden journals and my frustration with illogical student planners (that my kids and student volunteers complained about) lead to the creation of one semester student planners. 

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Coming out this year:

  

  • A garden journal or two for kids. I'm leaning towards two.

  • A devotional which contains some of my God Glimpses and longer essays that only my sense of humor and angst could produce.

  • The first in a mystery series for young adults titled The Treasure Hunt: Open. The sequels are Paper Knife and Page Turner. 

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Just Released:

  • The Unripe Gardener.

​Life:
  

I’m a pastor’s wife and we have two adult daughters. Along with my husband I’m co-founder of Lifewerks, Inc., a non-profit feeding the world (it seems like it) and mentoring young people.  https://www.lifewerks.org/.  Our family lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA.

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Fun Facts and Trivia:
  

  • I grew up the grandchild of real farmers. I know what it feels like to step in a fresh cow pile in bare feet, be chased by a mean rooster and an even meaner bull (I barely escaped with my life) and repeatedly jump twelve feet from a hayloft onto gravel without breaking anything. 

  • I may not know any more than you do about gardening, but I'm really good at looking things up. Plus I don't remember squat, so even if I do know it, I have to look it up again.

  • My husband and I had eight foster kids--not all at the same time, but close. For twenty years we were childless, and then for ten and one half months we had five. It was an adjustment worthy of a book. Some of those stories you'll find in my upcoming devotional. 

  • I read 3-7 books a week, and that doesn't include all the reading I do online, or on product packaging. I take my Kindle with me everywhere, even in the bathroom just to brush my teeth. While I love everything about print books, the smell, the romance of a library, the feel of the book in my hands, once I got my Kindle, it opened a whole new world. No more flashlight under the covers. No more holding the book up to my nose to see. At one point I had three digital devices for reading, but when the contract ran out, or the batteries, my Kindle Fire was still there, outperforming them all. I read to go to sleep, in the middle of the night when I can't sleep, and to wake up in the morning. Devotions first is my only rule. 

  • If you've experienced a painful experience of any kind, I probably know how you feel. And if I don't have firsthand experience, being a pastor's wife and running a food pantry puts me in contact with someone who has. Your story won't scare or shock me, and I may have a story here that will help you cope, because coping is a life skill I've had to acquire. That's really what this site is all about - learning to find joy in the midst of uncontrollable circumstances. 

  • Like you, the things I love to eat the most don't love me. Sad fact of life. Apparently I've already eaten my lifetime quota of ice cream, chocolate and beef. Do you want a list of my health problems and deformities? Yeah, I didn't think you did. Besides, I'm not sure if I know how to make a bullet point list under a bullet point list. 

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  • Trivia about me ~ things I've done:

    • Illegally flown an airplane.

    • Driven 120 miles per hour in a "stolen" car

    • Found four four-leaf clovers in a single day

    • Accidentally drank pee (2nd grade - blame the boys next door who said it was Cool Aid)

    • Fractured three bones in one foot in a single fall

    • Sat shoulder-to-shoulder with the goalie for the Philadelphia Flyers where his box met mine and yelled at him (This was before I learned that encouragement is much better than criticism. Okay, before I started to learn it. I'm still working on that skill.)

    • Learned how to make a bullet point list under a bullet point list, but not make a space under it.

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  • I can learn anything, including bullet point lists, if I just look it up. For example, I'm my own webmaster. So, if it looks wrong, I'm to blame. Let me know what I need to fix, and if you have a link for a how-to video, even better!

  • I'm an extreme introvert, living a public life. I know stress. 

  • I dream about living in a converted box van, moving on to the next spot when things get dicey. Only money and a husband and responsibilities and trying to figure out how to also have a moveable studio hold me back. 

  • I probably have hundreds of house plans in my files that I've drawn over the years, a waste of time that I can't get back. Or stop. It's an addiction. 

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