I was born on August 1, 1955 in Illinois-exactly where in Illinois wasn't determined until I was older. Mom always said I was born at Moline Public Hospital in Moline, Illinois. Well I don't know why Mom thinks she was at Moline Public that day but apparently she actually gave birth to me at Hammond Henry Hospital in Geneseo, Illinois. I found this out after several trips to the court house when I turned 45 trying to determine why I couldn't get a copy of my birth certificate

I grew up on a run-down, rickety-old farm just east of Sherrard, Illinois. We moved there in 1964, and yes the picture on "Binder Twine 'n Bandaids" cover is exactly the way the farm looked the day we moved in. My fondest childhood memories are of sitting around the dinner table for hours and hours listening to my dad tell one story after another. We never tired of Dad's stories and as we got older we couldn't wait to add our stories to the mix.

My husband and I've raised lots of kids for lots of years;his kids, my kids, their kids, our kids, heck, I wouldn't be surprised if your kids have lived with us at some time too. Most of our kids are grown now; they're 35, 32, 31 and 26. However just to make sure life didn't go too smoothly we added one more-she's eight now!   Yup! An eight year old

I had my foot on the rear of an 18 year old, looking forward to some peace and quiet, when the new one showed up. We also have a dog and a cat;  -we had a fish and a bird too but the cat is quite a hunter...

 I'm not sure I've ever had what you could call a career. I've done so many different things searching for my proverbial "nitch". I've worked as a dispatcher, a bank teller, and as an accounting clerk for the airlines.  The worst job I ever had was at a box factory--I lasted about 6 hours--cardboard flying out of machines at warp speed can do some pretty major damage, I folded more often than the boxes. Eventually I moved into the "professional" realm and started teaching computer programming at the community colleges.

That is what I was doing when Binder Twine 'n Bandaids was first published. I never intended to be an author, I am just a regular gal who tried to play a joke on her husband, -- it didn't go exactly as planned, turned out the joke was on me!