A glimpse into my world!

                              My family in 2008.  Shelby in front, Jim, me.  In back is Carrie Beth holding Freckles the cat and next to them is Nick.

                                    Just like Jamie's dad and uncle in Finding Atticus, I have my own firefighter hero, my husband, Jim.  Like Jamie's dad, Jim is a former chief of his department, too.

              This is Shelby, my very spoiled, but very loyal mixed breed dog.  She is nine years old and loves walks.  She, and our first dog, Brandy, who was a Golden Retriever, are my inspiration for Atticus in Finding Atticus. As you can see below, Shelby gets very stressed out sometimes.

The Finger Lakes region of western New York is beautiful.  This picture was taken on our property in Gorham, New York.  We're looking forward to building our house on this property and spending many evenings enjoying sunsets just like this one. (After I've finished writing for the day, of course!)

This will be the view, just after sunset, from the back of our house when we build it in Gorham.  I should get a lot of writing done with this kind of tranquility.

This picture of "Fireman Jim" with Ethan, the son of a friend of ours, is one of my favorites.  It was taken during Ethan's tour of "Fireman Jim's" firehouse.

I love working in my gardens in CT and in NY because it's a great time for my imagination to work at full speed.  I've plotted out many story lines while digging in the dirt and planting.

This is a picture of my father-in-law with Brandy, the Golden Retriever Jim and I adopted when we got married.  Brandy is the dog I pictured whenever I had to describe Atticus.

This is me jumping my horse, Tomero, at the Yates County Fair in Penn Yan, New York in 1977.  The amazing thing was, I was only jumping for fun. I'm a western rider, and Tomero was a barrel racing horse, but we won first place in the class and qualified for the NY State Fair, anyway.  I was smart enough to know we didn't belong in a jumping class at the State Fair, so we took a pass.

This is Freckles.  She's now 11 years old.  Normally her eyes don't glow.  She's studying chemistry here with Carrie Beth, so perhaps that explains the glow.

Does it get any cuter than THIS? This is Shelby sleeping in her New York bed after spending the day being a farm dog.  She loves to run around the fields looking for woodchucks.