Some of my favorite memories are having a friend dub my famous chocolate dark sea salt chocolate chip cookies "choir catcher cookies" (they were meant to be man catching cookies but no men were takers, so I just started baking them for my church choir) singing in the Disneyland Candlelht Parade, doing the Minnie's moonlht Madness tied waist to waist with other friends and hiking the pack of peaks to prepare for hiking to the top of Mount Whitney.

Living in France for work was a blast because not only did I get to appreciate all the beauty everywhere from the outdoor parks and beautiful architecture, I loved being in the museums (I cried when I went into the Louvre for the first time and found a room full of Peter Paul Rubens' paintings-- which made me feel silly, and I laughed at myself because there I was alone in a museum crying at beautiful art I couldn't see BECAUSE my glasses had fogged up.

Lately I've taken a break from all social media because a young friend asked me to do it with him as an encouragement. With all that time I've been spending it focusing more on my 35 year old relationship with God instead of trying to fure out ways to get more people to "like" me. And to be honest I actually like not having to report to people all the time, plus it's given me more time to devote to finishing my children's that I'm writing and illustrating. (With an African American female lead who's sweet but lacks confidence and finds it with the help of a magical friend-- lol, but don't they all?)

This is my passion and bines all my loves that I've researched and enjoyed over the years, old cars, old clothes and a sweeter more simple story telling style. I'm more the type of person who loves to laugh at good times with friends than AT friends or crass humor ... although e to think of it, I'm pretty adaptable. I've adopted-- or maybe been adopted by a group of boys from my church who have bee young men, and my they do like to talk about flatulence a lot. And do it... while I won't join them in the doing it, I'll be honest and admit, while the smell is not enchanting, there's something endearing about being accepted into their fort level.

I have several women I adore, one who is my art critic and oldest friend, one who I laugh at dumb stuff with-- AND can talk about deep things like talking about funny things out body does and then slipping into something like what it will be like in heaven. I also have a friend who was instrumental in helping me grow in my walk with God to the point that I ended up writing a in weht loss because of it. Yes, I USED to be morbidly obese. But not any more I've kept most of it off for the past 9 years, through things God taught me in the Bible (no bad food, just less) and while I have my ups and downs, it's more like a 25 pound thing and not a hundred and fifty pound thing.

Losing weht was really freeing, I actually discovered that I didn't hate traveling-- I just didn't like traveling fat, when I went with a roommate to the Philippines and then to Germany to help some missionary friends (they ended up not needing any help when I got there, they already had a team of people there that they forgot were ing-- so I made some new friends and had a 2nd vacation)

My all time favorite thing though is being able to talk to someone about Jesus. A work colleague once asked me why I talk about Him so much, and I told him, you talk about who and what you love, I'm just doing the same.

The thing I'm learning lately is that though God calls me to be perfect as He is perfect, He knows I will fail at it and so I totally rely on The same grace He gave me when He sent His son to die on my behalf and was raised again.