I am the mother of three grown sons who have become a carpenter, a personal trainer and a chef after spending most of their youth playing with footballs, baseballs and soccer balls. Correspondingly, I spent much of my young motherhood on bleachers and lawn chairs. I'm also an honorary "Gramma Kat" to two precious little girls and a "big sister" to "Lisa" through the Big Brother Big Sister organization which is one of my passions.

My days are spent in the helping professions in the Department of Corrections which provides me with a combination of horror, craziness, excitement, intrigue, and frustration with surprising spritzes of beauty and joy. I'm grateful for the experience which has opened up worlds and people to me that I would not have otherwise known. I will not, however, be sorry when the gate closes behind me for the last time and I am released to other pursuits.

Heaven is a good book on a warm beach with crystal clear water lapping at my ankles. It just doesn't get any better than that! Favorite authors include Barbara Kingsolver (Poisonwood Bible & Prodigal Summer especially!!), Elizabeth Berg, Toni Morrison, and Anne Lamott, among others. I liked a number of the Oprah picks. I particularly enjoy finding new authors first books. It's such an adventure! My hands down all-time favorite is THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD by Zora Neale Hurston, which to my ear, is the most beautifully lyrical piece of literature ever written. My heart rate picks up just mentioning it. It's paragraphs and phrases call me to return time and again for the sheer joy of letting the words slide across my tongue & the images to display themselves freshly behind my eyes.

The people saw her come because it was
sundown. The sun was gone, but he had left
his footprints in the sky. It was the time
for sitting on porches beside the road. It
was the time to hear things and talk. These
sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless
conveniences all day long. Mules and other
brutes had occupied their skins. But now,
the sun and bossman were gone, so the skins
felt powerful and human. They became the
lords of sounds and lesser things. They
passed nations throught heir mouths. They sat
in judgment.

Seeing the woman as she was made them remember
the envy they had stored up from other times.
So they chewed up the back parts of their
minds and swallowed with relish. They made
burning statements with questions, and killing
tools out of laughs. It was mass cruelty. A
mood come alive. Words walking without masters;
walking together like harmony in a song.

Ahhhhhhhhh............ :~D


Sharing books with a good friend creates a unique bond. My friend "Kmaire" and I shared THE BEANS OF EGYPT MAINE years ago, and to this day, we have to let each other know when we come across a "Bean Baby" somewhere out in the world. They are unmistakable. Another friend and I read Elizabeth Berg's OPEN HOUSE aloud to each other - alternating chapter by chapter, screaming hysterically at the Martha Stewart references until we collapsed. It grabbed me seriously as well; "...He was gone before he was gone..." she wrote, and the familiar chord was struck.

I sometimes like to dabble in scrapbooking and periodically morph into a compulsive writer of poems, esssays & children's stories. I am never satisfied, yet I cannot NOT write when the urge strikes. I never see it coming and sometimes my muse vanishes for months. I love art fairs and galleries. Unique creations. The wash of watercolor. The fine lines of pen and ink. Thick globs of oil. Sun glinting on glass. Live music. In my imagination, I can create such beauty. In real life I have an extra set of thumbs. I do I create cloth dolls ~ sometimes a traditional Raggedy Anne for a new little one in my life, but more recently am developing a passion for art dolls; experimenting and learning as I go. I hope to continue to evolve & progress artistically with the use of fabric and other materials.

I'm rambling....I will stop :~D