I was born in 1951 in Tucson AZ where I still live. I am a very happily married (to Christopher) mother of 6 grown children who are now ages 28 to 35 years old. Chris & I have been married 13 years so obviously he wasn't the first husband. Actually he wasn't even the second! Yes, that's right....he's my 3rd husband. Now if you are the type to raise an eyebrow at this point, go ahead and lower it and I'll share two important things here. He is my FINAL husband and I fully admit that it took me 3 times to get it RIGHT but I truly did. I also might add here that I have no regrets. My first husband is the father to all 6 of my children so without him, I wouldn't have them. I wish him well in his life with my ex-best friend. Hmmmm...well..let's not go there right now. My second husband was a nice man - just not one that was really marriage material if you get my drift. That one was a short marriage that felt very long. So now that we have all of that out of the way let's move on. LOL

Grammy is my favorite name. My first grandchild is Dillon Orion and he was born in 1993. I didn't get a second grandchild until February 2000 when my beautiful granddaughter Brynna Nicole was born.

All 3 of my daughters were having babies in the year 2000. After Brynna, heartbreak struck our family when my grandson Cole James was bornstill on July 14, 2000. In truth, I'm still trying to deal with that. Some days are better than others. My 4th grandchild, Jacob Christopher was born August 29, 2000. My 5th grandchild, Mason Alexander arrived Dec 9, 2001. My newest grandchild, Madelyn Hope, was born May 24, 2005. This site is full of pictures of my treasures. They each have their own page on my site. :)

Now that you have the story on my family, I'll tell you about my profession, from which I have been medically retired from for many years now. I spent 16 years with the Tucson Police Dept. as a Public Safety Dispatcher. That is just the official title - my job was dispatching on the police radio. It was a job that I loved and looked forward to going to every day. Well, okay, maybe there were a few days I didn't look forward to but I guess that happens to all of us. Although my main task was to dispatch calls for service to the officers on the radio, I also spent a great amount of my time training new dispatchers which I enjoyed immensely. It's a very difficult job just to physically and mentally do especially in a city the size of Tucson where we averaged over 1000 calls a day for service by the time I left in 1998. It carries a huge responsibility because you are not only in control of dispatching officers to citizens in need, you also are the"lifeline" for the officers when something goes bad. Knowing where they are and being able to respond calmly to their situations can make a life or death difference to them.

I miss my job terribly still to this day. I will never be able to return according to my doctors. I suffered multiple nerve compression injuries in my hands and forearms after typing too much, too fast, and for too long without adequate breaks. When I went off work in Feb 1998, it was with tendonitis that had my arms and hands so swollen that despite everything the doctors gave me as anti-inflammatories, the swelling didn't subside for five months. By the time it did finally, I had so much scar tissue left as an aftermath that it impinges on and compresses nerves in my arms and hands. I've had three surgeries to decompress nerves which has helped initially, but then scar tissue builds from the surgeries and I end up back at square one. What I am left with is chronic pain. It's painful whenever I use my hands and certain things like driving the car or any type of lifting or gripping are particularly painful.

As a result of many things associated with my injuries, I have suffered from depression and am still under active treatment for it. I found it very hard to adjust to the fact that I'd always been very independent and self-reliant and now I have to wait for Chris to get home from work sometimes just to get a jar open for me. I can't just go out shopping because someone needs to be along to carry things for me. I can't write letters like I used to and that was always something I really enjoyed. I can't hold a grandchild for more than a few minutes before I have to put them down or sit down with them. It's just things that are part of everyday life that are no longer feasible for me to do and I find it extremely frustrating and sad. I am very fortunate that my sister was able to move into our home with us in 1999 so that she would be here to help with the day to day things. I'm very lucky in so many ways.

I got the idea to do a website simply for something to do. It was the summer after we lost Cole and I was at loose ends. It looked so interesting and I wondered if I would be able to learn how to do one. I had help from my oldest son, Chris (we have a lot of Chris' in the family huh?), initially. He helped me decide on the software I was going to buy (Adobe Web Collection) and then he came from CA and spent an evening with me getting me started. I don't think he ever imaged the monster he created. LOL Now my kids have to email me to get my attention. LOL Just kidding kids! I found that web site building was not only fun, it gave me new goals to achieve, new things to learn and a new purpose to my life. It is something that I can do at my own pace and the hardest part about it for me is typing a long page like this. However, since I'm free to do it at my own pace, I find I can take my time and stop when I need to - somtimes for days. It's okay though because I spend my other time reading and studying to improve my skills. Ah, the little things in life that can give you a thrill - your first java applet, mastering a java script, learning HTML enough to 'fix' something....why I didn't even know what these things were in 2001 much less be able to do one. LOL

My latest adventure is in the world of web page graphics. I've taught myself to make them and opened my own graphics site with linkware for others to use. I started getting a lot of requests from web graphic designers to use some of my photographs of my roses and they made such beautiful web sets out of them that I decided I should try it myself since if there's one thing I have a lot of, it's my photos of roses. I use PSP 10 and Adobe Photoshop to create my graphics . This has been a great outlet for me artistically and although I still have a lot more to learn, I'm pretty pleased with what I've designed so far.

I have always loved to read people's lists of what they like and what they don't like. I think you can learn a lot about people from that so I'm going to wrap this page up with some of that info about me and perhaps you'll find things we have in common. Enjoy!