More than you ever wanted to know... About Me

I have bright blue eyes and brown hair that is usually past my shoulders. I have a long vertical scar on the right side of my face from where I had a basal cell removed when I was 23 years old. I'm about 5 feet, 3 inches tall. I hovered between 95 and 105 pounds through all of high school, college, and my mission, and only started gaining weight when I got pregnant with Hannah. Right now I weigh about 135 pounds.  I have a weak chin. I've never shaped my eyebrows or dyed my hair. I only recently began wearing makeup on Sundays and special occasions. I'm starting to get wiry grey hairs mixed in with the brown ones. I got my ears pierced at a mall in Brazil while I was a missionary. I tend to have weak joints and have had troubles with my ankles, knees, wrists, and back. I have a large mole on the side of my big toe, that I have always called my "eleventh toe". I don't like having my picture taken, and I don't like most pictures that have been taken of me.

Like my son John, I taught myself to read before starting kindergarten, and I still love to read. I read a variety of books, mostly fantasy, but also science fiction, historical fiction, and classics. My favorite books at different times in my life have included "Anne of Green Gables", "Jane Eyre", "Pride and Prejudice", "The Belgariad" and "The Dragonriders of Pern". I still enjoy reading books written for younger people, and lately have enjoyed reading Charlie Bone, Fablehaven and Percy Jackson books among others.

I like to sew. I have sewn dresses, shirts, pajamas, and stuffed animals as well as Halloween costumes, curtains, bags and pillows. A few years ago I asked a friend of mine to teach me how to make a quilt, and since then I've made five or six quilts. As a child I learned to crochet and cross stitch. More recently I've learned to knit and I'm currently working on knitting an afghan.

From a very young age, I have liked to draw. In high school I drew a lot of hands and faces when I was supposed to be taking notes. In college I took drawing and painting classes. About the time I got married I was working at Kinko's and learned to use Photoshop. Since then most of my artistic endeavors have been digital, primarily in the making of yearly calendars, and creating graphics for our family website.

I like music. My mom taught me the basics of playing the piano when I was a child, but it wasn't until I was a teenager that I put in the practice necessary to be any good at it. In elementary school I also learned to play the recorder, and I still remember how to play it. Last year I tried to teach myself to play the guitar, using an old one that my cousin gave my husband several years ago. I got pretty good at picking out the individual notes, but I only learned a handful of chords before the guitar suffered an unfortunate mishap (one of the tuning knobs was broken off.) and I haven't had the patience to try to tune it enough to practice playing much since then. I enjoy listening to music, whether it is Beethoven, Copeland, BeachBoys, Celine Dion or Celtic Woman. I have sung in church and school choirs most of my life, and occasionally sang duets with my sister or mom as a youth. I enjoyed serving as our primary chorister for a few years. Lately, however, my range has  lowered to the point where I feel more comfortable singing low alto or high tenor rather than the soprano I used to sing.

I like to do logic puzzles, sudoku, kukuro, jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, and play Scrabble. The only sport I really like to play is volleyball, but I do like to play around with a Frisbee. On the computer, I play Bejeweled, and occasionally Tetris, Mahjong or Spider Solitaire.

I don't think of myself as a good cook. I can follow a recipe, but I can't always tell from looking at a recipe whether it is something that my family will like or not. I occasionally try new recipes, but when I do, it isn't rare that Steven and I (or just I) are the only ones who eat it. I frequently like to make bread and homemade granola. After seven years in Colorado, I'm still learning how to adapt some recipes to the high altitude.

I met my husband in seminary during our sophomore year of high school. We went on a few dates in high school, but mostly I thought of him as a good friend. We lost touch for a few years then connected again after I had graduated from BYU, while I was serving an 18 month mission in Salvador, Brazil. Shortly after I returned, we were married  and sealed for eternity in the San Diego Temple. That was a dozen years ago and now we have four children: Hannah, John, Joshua and Peter.


My Love Language  is Quality Time, although I also appreciate Words of Appreciation and Acts of Service. 



I love to be warm. I used to joke that if I wasn't Mormon, I would be a sun worshiper. As a missionary, I was in the MTC in Provo, Utah in June and July, in Phoenix, Arizona (waiting for my visa) in August and September, and then spent the next fourteen months in north eastern Brazil, about 15 degrees south of the equator. Never once on my mission was I really cold. I loved it!



Growing up, I was terrified of dogs. The two huge doberman dogs next door may have had something to do with it. I still remember how they used to stick their noses through a gap in the fence and bark at us when ever we were in the back yard. It wasn't until I was on my mission that I became comfortable around dogs and now they don't bother me. We always had cats around when I was growing up, and although I'm allergic to them, I like them and tolerate the four we have right now. My favorite animals are frogs and I have a collection of stone, wood and metal frogs - not goofy cartoonish frogs, but more lifelike figurines. We bought a frog for our fish tank once, but it hid all the time, and then one day it vanished and although I've cleaned out the tank several times since then I never did find it or its remains.

I hate making phone calls. I was a visiting teaching supervisor once, and inevitably I would call people when they were napping or eating or at some other bad time and I always felt bad. Even now when I have to make phone calls I frequently have to take a deep breath and rehearse in my mind what I'm going to say. I like email a lot better because it is less intrusive: people don't have to drop what they are doing to answer it, and they can respond when it is convenient for them.

My favorite colors are green, blue, red and brown (in that order). I don't care much for orange, maybe because that was "my" color when I was a child (all my towels, toothbrushes, etc. were orange). 

I like to have a clean house, but I don't particularly enjoy cleaning. On most days I straighten up as fast as I can (I use my timer - 10 minutes in the kitchen, 10 minutes in the dining room, 10 minutes in the living room, hall and bathroom) and don't worry about cleaning the rest of the day. I appreciate Fly Lady and her helps with routines and decluttering.

As the song goes, "I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." Yes, I was born into the Church, but I have since gained my own testimony that the gospel taught there is true. I know that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God, that the teachings in the Book of Mormon are true and that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet today. I know that my Heavenly Father loves me. I know that through the atonement of Jesus Christ, I can repent, be forgiven of my sins, and return to live with God some day. I look forward to that. Knowing that these things are true shapes the way I look at the world and what kind of person I am.