Back Story

I was born in Waupaca, Wisconsin, to my parents who were living in Chicago at the time. I spent the first two months of my life in Chicago until my mom found a rat in my crib and decided Chicago was no place to raise a baby. So my parents moved to Kimberly, Wisconsin, where my dad worked in a shop that sold and repaired television sets – the black and white kind.

When I was about five or six, I was allowed to go to my dad’s shop one evening to watch “The Wizard of Oz” on the rare and expensive color TV. I still remember my mom exclaiming how beautiful it was when the black and white of Kansas turned into the beautiful rainbow of the Land of Oz.

When I was eight we took a trip Out West. My parents fell in love with Phoenix. We moved the next year. My dad was pretty talented and job openings were plentiful. We were still hanging out at the hotel for the second day when he was hired. We moved around a bit and finally settled a block from the North Phoenix Union High School that I attended when I turned 14. The neighborhood is now historical and the south-of-Virginia-Avenue slums have been converted to $120,000 historic ranch homes. 

Travel an hour or so out of Phoenix in any direction and enjoy the desert.

I attended a small teachers college in Minnesota which allowed me to spend my winters in the frigid north and summers in the arid south. And still, I could not get a tan.

After graduation I taught at a high school in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, then moved to Columbus, Ohio, to teach third and fourth grade in a tiny church school. After two years I married the man I met in LaCrosse (best place to get a husband) and quit to work at Frank’s Nursery and Crafts. I loved that job, but quit when I was seven months pregnant. I wanted to raise my family full time.

We moved every summer from rental to rental and we had a child every two years. Then, after baby number three, we bought a trailer and rented a space in Pataskala. My white trash years were memorable and no one questioned the wisdom of a trailer park mom having six kids.

We found a company that also built on vacant property. We traded in our trailer for a modular that was built on five acres we had purchased in northern Morrow County. Living in the country ignited my dormant urge to write and here we are, plus one more baby to make it an even seven, two published books to my name, three blogs, two Facebook pages and several thousand articles published in five different newspapers.

Thanks, Gramma Paulsen, and Mom, for giving me the bug to write and the encouragement to do what I like. Thanks, Dad, for giving me the balance and determination to want to do what I must.