About Me

Alaska Railroad Tracks - I love trains!

 I adhere to the adage that life is a grand adventure. I was born in Anchorage, Alaska in 1984 where I lived until May of 2003 when I graduated from Bartlett High School. Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah was my next adventure which ended abruptly in late December 2004 when I ran away to Washington, D.C. (all great and wonderful things are not for all great and wonderful people). I spent 2 years and 8 months living and working all over Maryland, Washington D.C., and the surrounding area. August 29, 2007 I returned to my homeland and current residence up North, though half of my heart remains on the East Coast in all its historical charm and grandeur. 

Cherry Blossoms in Washington DC

Fireweed

The docks in Seward, Alaska

I currently work for Assets, Inc., a local non-profit organization that supports adults with severe mental illnesses and disabilities, as a their Community Services Administrative Support Manager. I was hired in early 2008 and have been going strong since; my most recent promotion was in December 2017 and I feel like I've finally found my niche behind-the-scenes tackling a variety of tasks from IT work and audits to community outreach. 

I am passionate about advocacy for people who struggle with mental disabilities and illnesses, and have been for a long time. In 2019, at the age of 34, I married a man with the same passion. He is gentle, kind, patient (the only way anyone can put up with me), and caring. I never knew how much I could love someone until I fell in love with him, and to be loved just as much in return... it's more than I could ever have imagined. Every past relationship failure makes sense now because I know God really did have something up His sleeve for me. It was random and somewhat unfortunate circumstances that caused our paths to initially cross, then a tragedy tied our paths together. A friendship grew from it all and slowly but surely, the rest has become history. 

Rick and I

I'm slowly trudging my way through school to get a bachelor's degree in Public Health so I can then get a master's in Social Work. As much as I have a different (see: better) appreciation for higher studies as an older young adult (35 at the time of this writing), I also see why folks continue to encourage younger adults to finish school sooner than later. More important than the financial and career advantages it offers is the fact that it is so much easier to stay up late or pull all-nighters to finish papers and projects at ages I haven't seen in more than a decade! Oofta! Take the current year, subtract 1984, and I’m that many years old with more of a clue as to where I’m going next in life than I had a few years ago, but still a little lost; aren't we all?