Here I am in a nutshell:

I’m a Hoosier born (1956) and bred. I was raised in Evansville, Indiana. I am a retired elementary school teacher now living with my husband, Jim, in Paoli, Indiana. He and I married in 1977.
While Evansville is a big river city located on the Ohio River, Paoli is a very small rural town with only 3 stoplights in the hills near the Hoosier National Forest and is home to many Amish. We own 60 acres of forest and live in a timber frame house deep in the woods with our rescue dog, Dash. We call our place “Fang Farm” because there are lots of snakes, including copperheads. (We love snakes.)

Though I’m from the conservative heartland, I must say that I’m quite liberal and enjoy diversity. I’m cheerful and friendly.

We have a son who is married. He lives with his wife in Yucatan, Mexico. We have two precious grandchildren, Sandrita, age 6 and Luis, age 3. We see them only three times a year. We visit them in Mexico at Easter. They come up to visit us in the summer and then again at Christmas.

When we lived in Evansville, I was very involved in theatre. On weekends, I performed in musicals and sang jazz standards at a high-end restaurant. Now that I live in the countryside, I sing in a band called Lick Creek. (That’s me singing in the photo with the band.) We perform rock, pop and jazz standards. I’m trying to teach myself to play the ukulele for fun. Obviously, music is very important to me. I really love the old jazz standards sung by the greats. I like to sing old standards a capella and often do so when we are at gatherings, since I can’t tell a joke!

I am a ZUMBA instructor and teach classes a couple of times a week. On the days I don’t teach ZUMBA, I walk and lift weights with a friend.

I love to cook and bake. I write a cooking blog called Husband-Tested Recipes. I have taught cooking classes and done cooking demonstrations.