My Life Story

First Seven Months
I was born in Akron, Ohio. A tree was planted when I was born.

Next Seven Years
We moved to Upper Arlington, Ohio, a suburb on the outskirts of Columbus. I climbed trees, imagined, and began school.

Next Two Years
My family moved to Rickmansworth, which is a town outside London, England. I attended some of second, third, and fourth grade there. I remember almost everything, and returned with a British accent.

Before Junior High
After a brief move back to Ohio, we settled near Seattle, Washington. I was placed in a gifted class and became the nerd in a group of nerds.

Junior High
In seventh grade, I was pretty much the scum of the school. It was one long string of embarassment that lasted through eighth grade. By ninth grade, things were looking better.

High School
I began high school with a large group of friends and ended it as a loner. By choice, this time. Ironically, I served on student council my senior year, the year I spent mostly alone.

College
I was an Honors student majoring in Comparative History of Ideas (CHID Homepage) and Drama (Drama Homepage). While in college, I did freelance desktop publishing and computer consulting under the name Fearsome Tendril Publishing. As most college students do, I developed my personality and experimented with the world. I continued to apply my procrastination approach to my schoolwork, and graduated Cum Laude.

The "Real" World
I had a good job, working at AT&T Wireless Services as a system analyst (among other titles). The company is a good company as a whole, and takes care of its employees. The free cell phone was nice, too. It was during this time that I met Steve and we started dating.

The Wide World
After four years of working in an office, I had enough and quit to travel the world. I spent two and a half months backpacking alone in New Zealand, then Steve joined me for four and a half months in NZ, Australia, and southeast Asia. You can read my travel stories here.

Sabbatical
After the trip, I spent a year living with Steve in Vancouver, Canada. Just after we got there, he proposed with a ring he designed himself. We got married on May 26th, 2002. In Canada, I volunteered with a local elementary school, pursued hobbies, planned our wedding, and enjoyed the free time.

Making a Home
For a year after the wedding, we lived in a house for the first time and found out what married life is like (good so far). Home ownership and children hovered on the horizon, so we headed back to work to subsidize these endeavors.

Owning a Home
We bought our first house (in North Seattle) and moved into it in the summer of 2003. Since then, we've been enjoying life as homeowners. Luckily, Steve likes gardening so I don't have to do much of it, although lawn care is my job. We're finding that owning a house is a long process of prioritizing projects, because there's so much we want to do.