I was born in Hawaii, a daughter of the Marine Corps. We lived all over the U.S.--North Carolina, Virginia (twice), Ohio, Missouri, California, and Florida--but never outside it. I went to college in Florida (University of Florida), then moved to Colorado, Nebraska (twice), Texas, and California (again) as an adult.

I have a private studio in piano and historical keyboards and am needlework teacher and writer.

I have two sons, Andrew and Matthew, of whom I am exceedingly proud. And a brown miniature poodle named Chocolate, who's a pretty good pup.

My leisure activities include more needlework, paper marbling (the marbled paper on my front door is mine), writing, reading, and cooking (I've a great fondness for chocolate!). My work has appeared in several needlework magazines, but currently I write for three: Just CrossStitch,The Cross Stitcher, and, in the UK, Classic Stitches.

As to sports, "back in my day," girls were not encouraged to be involved in sports. There were no girls' soccer leagues and so on, although there was a girls' softball league. A few girls ("tomboys," they were facetiously called) naturally gravitated to sports, but the rest of us did not. I think I could have been a good competitive swimmer, but I never did more than go up the ladder (to the top, naturally!) in Red Cross swimming classes. A couple of years ago, I began a weight-training regimen for health reasons and discovered that I am good at lifting. It's just my willpower against the iron! It's a constant challenge, and that is appealing to me. Since I ski for an hour daily on my NordicTrak, someday I'd like to try cross-country skiing on real snow. I also like to sail and spent over 12 years cruising coastal waters off California and Canada, as well as weekend cruises and gunkholing. I probably would like powerboating, but I don't know. Some day I'm going to take up small boat (such as a Laser) sailing.

I spend time on-line. I also maintain this behemoth homepage! I write my own code from scratch, too (no html editor). Nothing fancy here, but it's mine!

You can read my music and needlework biographies here on my home page if you'd like more detail about these parts of my life. I also have family photo album, but I haven't worked on it as much as I would like to. There are also some sailing pictures here and a few other photos on the poodle page, mentioned earlier.

Thanks for visiting my home page. Please come back again! If it were possible, I'd serve you a nice piece of Bête Noire with raspberry sauce.