| DUSTY'S BIO.... |
| Here goes...I'll turn 55 in May of this year. I hail from Old New England...tiny town called North Adams, nestled in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. Now I live in Charlotte NC and I'm married to hubby #4 (it's the last time, I swear!) Because this time I got it right!! Not only is he my best friend & soul mate, but the most understanding supportive spouse any woman could hope to find! I could take you on a tour of all the cities & states I've lived in, but even Yahoo has limits!! Ha! Rich has a son Ricky and a daughter Sandy...40 and 36 respectively. I have 3 beautiful children, Kathleen 34, Ryan, 24 and AJ, 22. Kathleen is responsible for our gorgeous granddaughter #1, Morgan, who's even more beautiful than her Mom! Just before Christmas 2009, Kat married the love of HER life, a wonderful man name Geoff Disher. Their's is a true fairy-tale romance and I'm working on getting it onto the porch complete with wedding pictures so I won't tell any of it here!! Ricky & his lovely wife Dawn gave us our wonderful granddaughter #2, Lauren, who is my heart!!! She just turned 7 a few days ago....she's the only grandbaby we have who's within HUGGIN' distance because the rest of the clan are down Greensboro way....sniff-sniff! My son Ryan, who's a gifted writer and poet in his own right, is still footloose and fancy-free. He's also our resident computer guru who can make the darned things do everything but cha-cha!! A skill that I promise he did NOT inherit from me.... AJ, my youngest and his beautiful wife Mary, presented us with granddaughter #3, Mackenzie Marie (a.k.a Munchkin! )born 4 days before our wedding anniversary on November 7th of 06!! And then...on Paw-Paw's birthday in 2008...they presented us with our first grandSON!! Aiden! Needless to say, when we manage to accommodate everyone's schedule in the same year that it's our turn to host the holidays....chaos is an understatement! Rich retired in 1999 and we then spent 4 or 5 years commuting between Massachusetts and North Carolina playing musical states before settling in the Queen City. We bought our lovely little condo, complete with patio, in a beautiful community called Candlewood. I informed hubby how very glad I was that he liked it so much because the only way I was leaving was "in a box"!! Had enough packing to last me a lifetime!! So we put all of our hearts & most of our wallets into furnishing and decorating this little place and we truly do love it! We share it with Sugar, the "speagle" (part beagle, part spaniel, all angel....and sweeter than her name!) that we rescued from a shelter at her "eleventh" hour!! I used to work full time for Cirrus Medical Staffing, although the economic gloom forced them to lay me off back in June of 09. But God has opened other doors and I'm going back to school in January to get my degree in medical coding and billing!! This will let me work from home eventually and that's my goal!! In the meantime? I keep busy! I maintain my beloved Front Porch, I paint a line of T-shirts I call Witness Wear, I make Disciples Crosses to use introduce new believers to what Jesus did and to remind the rest of us, I crochet all year long to make "Hats for the Homeless" ( if you're good with a hook? I sure could use the help!!! LOL!) I also volunteer with a prison ministry too, that goes into the city jails here in Charlotte to share the Gospel!! (Link coming soon!!) Rich still has his 3 "unofficial" jobs. He's vice-president of the Homeowners Association here at Candlewood, an avid tennis players (doubles and singles) 7 days a week where, at age 66 he's still beating the socks off guys younger than him by 20 years.....(you GO baby!!!) and, since I don't drive anymore, he's my official "chauffeur". I have a younger sister in Florida working as a nurse and busy with Dan, her very hunky significant other, and her new granddaughter Chloe. Our Dad's still up in Pittsfield, Mass. I have a best friend ( miss ya girl!!) who lives in Vermont, friends all over the country PLUS a HUGE clan of aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews & cousins still holding down the fort up in Massachusetts. Almost everyone is viewable in the family album 3 or 4 clicks away... Most folks who know will tell you I'm a mixture of a lot of things...clown, poet, dreamer, Karaoke Queen....noted mostly for being out-spoken, outgoing and sometimes downright outrageous! I cry easily, laugh often, love to make others laugh and if you're my friend? I'm never NOT there when you need me!. I'm usually UP because I'm simply too blessed to be depressed. I've been witness to and the recipient of so many miracles in my life that the faith I've always had in the Lord has been cemented into a rock solid foundation that is the basis for everything I am and all that I do...alright.....I can hear some girlfriends out there ( CJ ?) muttering... "OK,ok.....enough already!!" I'm done. |
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| Had to have a section in place to give credit where it's due and thank all the folks who helped me make the FRONT PORCH a reality !! Top honors go to CJ Jones and Dean Hardy, over at Cirrus! They were in on this project from the beginning and I KNOW I drove CJ nuts for weeks getting her to scan in most of the personal photos for the ALBUM and having her explain various computer "stuff" ! And Dean, for his invaluable help with computer operation in general as well as finding me a security system that was advanced enough to protect my computer and easy enough for this "technologically-challenged cybergranny to acutally install and use! And Dean gave up SO many lunch hours during the week, to listen and critique the "scribbles" that I continue to turn out on a weekly basis....I couldn't have done it without either one of them!!! And there's one more friend who came along after the Porch had been up and running for a few years but has to be mentioned and that would be Nicole Pratt, or YANK as I've called her almost from the moment we met!! She taught me how to BLOG, insert stuff, link stuff, etc.....I still don't understand the HITMUL and JPEG stuff but I most definitely know who to run to when I want a SONG on a page, or lose a link, or can't find all those weird places on facebook!! Honorable mention has to go to the folks at Yahoo Tech Support for helping me navigate through the Sitebuilder process over the last 4 years!! I'm sure there are many Christians over at Yahoo's phone center....otherwise, I'd have had a price on my head long before now!! I'm honest enough about myself to admit that the last thing anyone at a helpline center wants is an upset, panicked ME on the phone at all hours of the day and night; but that's exactly what they got! Without their patience and commitment to Customer Service....I'd still be building..not publishing! So thanks folks! |
| CJ!! For her invaluable instruction in the ups & downs of "hitmul" & "jpeg" !! Not to mention scanning almost every photo on the PORCH! Couldn't have done it without ya, girl!! |
| Dean!! For all his technical expertise and assistance! Plus his lunchtime duties as invaluable critic and part-time editor !! That's his new daugher Lauren!! Cute, cute, cute!! |
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