I devour books. When I was a toddler, I pretended to read.  I quickly turned the pages of anything laying around the house looking for pictures to give hints to the storyline.  I speed read and swallow thousands of pages per month. Sometimes I linger and chew the words and other times I gulp them down and probably miss the full flavor.  

My first memory of formal reading is a record player with an official school looking program. I matched the booklet to the record label; dropped the needle on the black vinyl disc and then followed the voice . I was lucky and there was always something for me to read where I lived or visited. Dick and Jane were boring. My grandparents subscribed me to my first book of the month club.  My second grade teacher started a chart and challenged us to earn a sticker and fill it before the end of the year.  I finished it in a month.  She told my parents it was time for me to graduate from picture books with simple lines of text.  

The trip to the Buena Vista Library in Burbank, California, is one of my fondest memories. Besides having alone time with my Dad for one of the rare times in my life, I was introduced to the sight and smell of slivers of color in horizontal and vertical rows.  I was giddy.  Sensory overload at its most comfortable and cozy level.  I was in love.  With my first library card and maximum of three books, I skipped out into the sunlight with Nancy Drew and passion was ignited.  

I am a lifelong learner.  I believe it is in my DNA and passed down from my parents, and their parents, and back and back to whatever ancestors – from whenever time periods – in whichever lifetimes modeled it for me.  In the formal schooling window of junior high through undergrad college, I discovered I like to choose what I learn more than being told what to learn.  I have an independent streak.  

I have earned a Bachelors in Business Administration with a Marketing emphasis, a teaching certificate, a Masters degree in Curriculum and Instruction specializing in Middle School Mathematics.  I started a doctorate in Teacher Education and in my second year, we adopted my daughter.  Three kids came into our lives in less than 3.5 years.  After thirty-one years of marriage and twenty-three years of parenting, I have learned many things. I read and wrote and shared my insights on a couple of blogs.  I published and distributed, and sold, a magazine focused on healthy living and a healthy planet.  I became certified as an integrative health coach.  I became an expert in female reproductive health.  I am a flexible thinker.  I continue to sample new cuisines of topics. 

When my youngest graduated from High School, I applied to NAU to earn a Masters Certificate in Women and Gender Studies.  I am currently taking other courses to receive certificates in Rhetoric, Writing, and Digital Media Studies (RWDMS) and Community College Higher Education (CCHE) in the English and Education departments.  I might wander over to the History department.  

In my almost six decades of life, I still feel the same excitement for a new class as if it is my first day of Kindergarten.  I begged to go to school once I learned there was such a place from cousins and neighbors.  I continue to dig into the vocabulary around me and try to make sense of words and terms in our ever changing and evolving society and world.  

One of the most impactful decades of my life was the pursuit of parenthood.  My three children came after multiple miscarriages, infertility, failed ART (Artificial Reproductive Technology), adoption, and the natural birth of my third child.  It was a journey I would not wish on anyone, but I would not trade away.  My current research and writing focus is a deep dive into the topics around the stigma of menstruation, pregnancy loss, and infertility.  In the United States, neoliberalism influence focuses citizens on the perfect pregnancy and the American dream of the nuclear family. This country doesn’t like to discuss blood and loss and failure.  

I am currently exploring gender stereotypes and the burden of responsibility placed on women to be the reproducers and the caretakers of children. I like to weave in and out and all around many topics.  I am curious, and excited, to see what comes from this experience with all of you. 

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In looking for fun images, I found this fun and creative children’s book by Oliver Jeffers:

The Incredible Book Eating Boy

Literary Dinnerware is available for purchase CLICK HERE