Hey Y’all…
Yes, I’m a Yankee by birth, but I’ve lived south of the Mason-Dixon Line for so 
many years my New Jersey twang has become something of a southern drawl. Forty-eight years ago I married Joe, the love of my life, and as a Marine Corps aviator he’s taken me on an adventure that had us picking up stakes and planting new roots eighteen times in twenty-four years! It’s hard to nurture a career when you move every couple of years, so mostly I’ve been a mom to two boys (now men), an exercise instructor, a legal secretary, an admin assistant, an office manager, and for fifteen years the assistant editor for the Marine Corps Gazette, the professional journal of the United States Marine Corps. I’ve also added mother-in-law and grandmother of three to my resume in the last decade or two.
Joe and I left our Marine Corps roots behind when he retired in 2000, and I retired in 2013. We’ve settled, for now, in Dallas, Texas, where I have become, of all things, a writer. I didn’t set out to be a writer, but I found myself with a story I felt compelled to tell—first to free myself from a lifetime secret, then to share it with those who carry the same burden, and finally, to proclaim from the mountaintops all that God has done for me. He’s set me free from the dirty secret and shame of childhood sexual abuse.
And so, I’ve written a book, Little Girl Mended, which was published by Higher Power Press in 2016. My second book, Awakening to God’s Voice: A 90-Day Journey From His Heart to Yours, written with my bestie, Constance Brocato, is set to be published by Houseboat Publishing on August 2, 2024. Click here to follow the journey—on the subject of childhood sexual abuse, the publishing process and, my favorite, living life abundant. Glad to have you along!