About Me

What a life I have had the opportunity to live!  Daughter, sister, grandchild, niece that grew into friend, wife, mom, aunt, grandmother and child of God.

I was born in 1946 as part of the first wave of Baby Boomers following the end of fighting in WWII.  I grew up in a cotton farming community in the Blackland area of north Texas.  My mom became the first female school bus driver in Collin county, Texas, in the spring of 1948 when I was the ripe age of about 14 months.  I rode that bus route with her till she went to work for Texas Instruments in 1958.

My dad was not a farmer at heart and would rather work on the equipment.  So eventually he put in a "shop" in the unused Chambersville cotton gin building.  Eventually the shop moved to Weston, TX.  That venture lasted only till Laud and Dwayne Howell convinced Daddy to come to work for them as a delivery and repairman for their furniture store in McKinney, TX.

I have two older and one younger sister.  The age spread from oldest to youngest is best described by the years of our births:  1936, 1940, 1946 and 1954.  Remarkably, as "grown up" we four sisters do not argue or fight over anything.  We respect each others opinions and know when love of sister is worth more than getting ones way on pretty much anything.  We have thrown some wonderful birthday and anniversary parties for our folks.  We worked through any difference of opinion on all the stuff that has to be done for the "event".

I attended schools in Collin county graduating from Allen High in May, 1965.  My objective of attending college was quickly side stepped when I began working at TI.  I left home, as we called it then, to share an apartment with a couple of different women.  During that time, I met, dated and fell in love with Gene.  We were married in 1967.  We celebrated our 45 wedding anniversary with our son and his sons in June2012.

In 1973 the best development of our marriage was born, our son John.  Having been told years earlier that we would probably not have children, his birth was a real miracle so far as we are concerned.  The joy and at times pain of parenting are life transforming.  John Roger is our only child.  We relish his presence and his three sons presence in our lives.

Daddy died in 2004 leaving my Mom alone for the first time ever in her life.  She was just short of her 16th birthday when they married in 1934.  Mom being alone has been one of the biggest challenges for us four sisters.  A move to an independent living facility solved some travel time issues but left Mom with a slight loss of identity.  In 2013 due to further declines, Mom was moved into assisted living as those with room for her are too elderly to care for her.

So you may be asking yourself how is this information about my parents, sisters, husband and son a part of my "about me" tab.  Simply this, I am a person that centers around family.  Because I lived 400 miles from my siblings and Mom and 700 miles from our son and grandsons, I have extended the family circle to include nearby friends and sorority sisters.  In 2013 this distance changed as we relocated to the area where our son and his boys live.

Other than family and friends, I am a person of faith and have been such as long as I can remember.  I enjoy United Methodist Women as an outlet for my faith journeys.  I am a crafts person, gardener and seamstress.  I do all things to the best of my ability or the amount required by the task.

I worked over the course of 42 years in various parts of the electronics industry mostly focusing on the graphic arts use in circuit imaging.  I watched the imaging part of circuits go from hand laying strips of red tape in 4x and 2x sizes in 1966 to computer driven digital data with circuits of .003".  In 2002 I left the electronics industry and tried sales and service in the furniture industry.  I found I prefer the challenge of computer programs over helping customers buy furniture.

2005 brought the sale of Gene's parents home of 50+ years.  Within a week his dad passed away from complications of a fall the day before the auction of the homeplace.  Gene had spent the time from his retirement in 2002 to that day working to make his parents life easier on them.  While he continues to look after his mother's interests, her mind cannot grasp life's good times anymore.  We lost Gene's mom in November of 2013.  She was 99 years of age.

Fall of 2005 had us in Gene's favorite vehicle, a 1999 Jeep Wrangler.  We retraced portions of the Lewis and Clark expedition back to the east coast.  A four week tour with all the fall colors was healing for Gene following the loss of his father.

In 2006 I chose to join Gene in retirement.  The next year Gene had a blood clot with major complications that led to a "thoracic event".  That is basically when one has no heart beat and no respiration.  With a God and great medical personnel, Gene pulled through.  In 2008 we piled into the same Jeep Wrangler and headed out on a 6 week trip into the Canadian and American Rocky Mountains.  We tent camped in Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Estes Park.  It was a glorious trip and quite the celebration of survival of a near fatal health issue.

2013 brought the loss of Gene's mother three weeks after her 99th birthday.  While it was sad, it was a relief to her two years of suffering repeated hospitalizations for pneumonia.  Her lungs just wore out though her heart was strong to the last.

Now I am a senior citizen with a past life that influences decisions each day.  A senior citizen that wants to see people learn the times to compromise.  A senior citizen that believes in humanity and its great potential.