About Me

About me, what about me….well, I’m the youngest of seven kids who grew up in the frozen north country of Grand Forks, North Dakota, 50 miles from the Canadian border. The town had a population of about 50,000 when I lived there (1950s to 1970s), and the US Census Bureau in 2019 estimates it now has about 55,000, so it hasn’t grown by much, even though the state’s largest university is there. The Census Bureau also says the population is 85% White (still), so it’s not the most diverse place in the US to grow up.

As soon as I was legally able, I pointed my car south, started driving, and didn’t stop until I reached the Gulf of Mexico. Enough of insufferable winters! For the next 44 years, I instead dealt with insufferable summers. I won’t say the oil industry brought me to Texas initially, but it was certainly the reason I stayed. I began my geoscience career initially in Dallas, Texas, and 9 years later moved to Houston, where eventually I started my own business as a technical editor/writer. The majority of the time I spent in Texas was in Houston, 23 years. I also lived directly on the Gulf Coast, in Rockport, for 12 years.

A family crisis brought an abrupt change to what I’d considered my permanent move to Texas. I quickly packed up my life and left Houston for eastern Washington State in the summer of 2023. I now live in Spokane and am enjoying a much milder climate, a bit of snow in the winter, and having most of my family in the same state.

I’ve been holding the business end of a red pen, figuratively speaking, for more than 30 years, editing everything from geological, engineering, environmental, medical, nanoscience, computer science, and lots of miscellany in between. To say that editing honed the anal-retentive side of my nature would be an understatement. Now, I’m trying to turn that spigot off a bit and let the right side of my brain flow. Let’s see what comes out! (But please, if you see a typo in any of my blog posts, do tell me, would you?) 

I’ve been married and divorced three times, I’ve had as many as two dogs and seven cats, I’ve had a raccoon die in my attic, and I’ve been through a hurricane, several tropical storms, and a few floods. I’ve had some great successes and some colossal failures. Lots of material there for a nonfiction blog! My goal is to write open, honest stories that maintain a sense of humor, and I hope you enjoy them. 

And if any of this resonates with you, if you see yourself in any of my stories, my hope is that you’ll feel a little bit less alone out there. Feel free to reach out! The world is a better place when we acknowledge and support each other.