My Story

These are a few of my favorite things...Seashells...Creative Cooking...Flower Gardening... Entertaining.... Making Music..  Knitting... Canoeing... Photography... Travel...Friends..Scuba Diving... The Sound of the Ocean...Crafts...Genealogy... Dreaming and of course Scrapbooking & Cardmaking.

Follow My Life to see how becoming a Close To My Heart Consultant became the perfect career to bring all my interests together. Let me "Show you How" to preserve your family's legacy & Celebrate lasting relationships with Close to My Heart.

My whole life I have found that I have too many interests and not enough time. So welcome to my world. I read somewhere that on average a person has three different careers in their life time...My goal when I graduated from High School was to break that record.

I loved math & computers so my first career lasted 7 years at Mid-American Bank, moonlighting at my parents craft & needlework store "The French Knot" teaching craft classes.  I was struggling having children, so I changed to a less stressful work of managing the store.  After eight long years of pills, shots, procedures, & surgeries, my TWO little miracles, TWINS Shawn & Chelsie arrived. At that point I decided to be a semi-stay at home mom, only working part-time at the store.  After 4 years I needed more and I decided to start into my third career as a Free-Lance Craft Designer/Author.

During the next 11years I did everything from teaching craft classes to going to National Conventions and workshops, PBS segments, writing magazine articles, and designing kit lines. In the end I designed/authored 15 books in all, of which one received the Innovations Award in 1998. Some where in there I became a professional volunteer and decided it was more fun. Of course other parents were more than happy to also share there children with me.

I became a Girl Scout Leader, Boy Scout Treasurer/Camp Chaperone, Co-GS Day Camp Director, Chaperone of the Venture Crew & on many sport banquet committees, I also partcipated in the BG Relay for Life since the beginning. And of course became my children's personal secretary (Does that count as a career ?)  Shawn acheived his BSA Eagle Scout in 2006 & Chelsie the GS Gold award in 2007.

I could see it was getting towards the end of my professional Volunteering Career (LOL, it never ends) and time to make some money again.  Something to keep me busy, however I did not want it to be overwhelming...Time to be creative, yet travel & not be tied down...so two part-time home based careers began in the Spring of 2006. A Close to My Heart Consultant, check out My Art & a Personal Travel Planner which is still evolving.

Through all these years & careers, I still somehow managed to stay active in Beta Sigma Phi Sorority, continue researching family Genealogy (Fourth Great Grandfather a founding father of Bowling Green, OH & my family tree back to the 16th century in Switzerland) & still enjoy Bell Choir.

Okay my dreams for the future....It's better to aim high and fail, than to aim low and succeed.  I have always wanted to retire in Culebra, Puerto Rico. Still have some time :)

My tombstone will read "It's the friends we meet along life's path that help you appreciate the journey".