I’m the sassy wife of a hot reformed pastor, a mom to four fantastic boys whom we educate at home. I’m also an amateur photographer. This video gives you a peek into my world…

I’m an extroverted people person who is above all else, real. I despise pretense. Okay, so yes, I clean my house before people come over and I run around like a crazy woman trying to pick up the tidbits of paper that my younglings hack up and distribute throughout the house on a daily basis.  I also photoshop really hideous zits off of my face in pictures when they happen to show their ugly faces.  But other than that I really despise pretense.  I’m a wife.  I take pictures a lot.  I’m a mom.  I homeschool my four boys.  For a year I worked from home as Ree Drummond’s “Prize Wrangler” and Recipe “printable lady” but that’s a little up in the air right now because changes are a normal part of life.  I’m not sure what that means about my future work at home status but no matter what, it was a great year and she has been a darling to work for as you can well imagine if you are familiar with her.

This is me with my best friend, pretending to be gangstas in high school (this, for the record, though it might look like it, is not pretense.) This will prove to be a very important piece of information as you get to know me better.

No. It really won’t. In fact, you could have gone an entire lifetime without seeing that and been happier than a clam.

This is me now in all my glowing radiant beauty.  Or the closest I will ever get to glowing and radiant, unless of course I ever happen to have an unfortunate altercation with a nuclear power plant.

This is my hunky hubby, known here simply as The Pastor.

These are my kids. I hate pretense, so I don’t give them fake names on my blog. But I never said I hated anonymity. I try not to mention their names specifically. They keep me busy and they keep me in line. We educate them at home.

A little more about me?

Places I’ve lived
(in no particular order)Mount Hermon, CA
San Leandro, CA
Dallas, TX
Carrollton, TX
Calgary, AB
Hayward, CA
Langley, BC

Castro Valley, CA

College Station, TX

Famous People I’ve Met
(very briefly)

President Bush Sr.
Mikael Gorbachev
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
DCTalk
The Newsboys (ate lunch with them!)
Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken

Schools I’ve attended

Happiness Hill Preschool (class of 82)
Redwood Christian School
Hayward Highschool
Trinity Western University

Jobs I’ve had

Daycare worker
Customer and Sales Service Rep. at an Electrical parts company
Baker’s Assistant

(nothing like spending your morning with your face over a doughnut frier let me tell ya.)
Mommy Extraordinairre

Prize Wrangler and Recipe Transcriber for my friend Ree, The Pioneer Woman

Cafeteria dishwasher
Receptionist
Accts. payable/Receivable
Part time Nanny
Toy store sales associate
Childcare teacher (at family camp)
Babysitter
Michael’s Arts & Crafts floor manager

Pets I’ve had
(in no particular order)

Arthur the dog
Wiggles the rabbit
Posie the cat
Smokey the dog
Socks the cat
Evil biting escape artist hampster
Daisy the rat
Shasta the dog
Princess the rabbit
Checkers the rat

Bruce the Golden Retriever

Nikki the dog
Emmy the rat
Rusty the dog
Birdy the sinister canary

Sally the Boxer Yellow Lab X
Many a Nameless fish
Suki the Yorkie Mix

Some books I’ve liked

The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer
Ramona books — all of them by Beverly Cleary
Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton

Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Crime and Punishment by Doestyevsky

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton

John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat by Jenny Wagner
Knowing God by J.I. Packer
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Ted Tripp

Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
The Bible by men inspired by God
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Peace Shall Destroy Many by Rudy Weib

The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynn Truss

The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns

Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Hidden Smile of God by John Piper
Othello by William Shakespeare
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Some Movies I’ve loved or died laughing at either because it’s stupid or truly funny or quoted endlessly for one reason or another or found stupid but addictive or hated the first time I watched it but loved it ever after

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (original)
Anne of Green Gables
Pride & Prejudice
Emma (BBC 2009)
Oklahoma!
Monty Python’s: Holy Grail
Shallow Hal
Spanglish
Anything made by Alfred Hitchcock
The Sound of Music

Nacho Libré

Hitch
Anything with Carey Grant in it
Anything with Jimmy Stewart in it
Wallace and Grommit
Napolean Dynamite

Where the Wild Things Are
Anything made by Pixar
Say Anything
Anything that makes me laugh until I pee my pants
Anything that makes me cry like a baby
(this list could probably go on for another 10 minutes)

Movies I have hated

Posession
The Notebook
Anything made by Michael Moore
Camelot!
(at the risk of making Ree cry) South Pacific
(mostly because of that darn Bally Hai song)
My favorite T.V. shows at some point in time

Gilmore Girls
House
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
The Brady Bunch
Leave it to Beaver
The Jetsons
The Smurfs
The Gummy Bears
ER
What Not to Wear
The Flinstones
Alf
Full House
Overhaulin’