About Us

We are a quirky, happy family living southeast of Houston in the little suburb of Clear Lake. I'm fat and happy, having married my dream guy, a sweet-hearted nerd who is a dead-sexy cross between Ichabod Crane and Edward Scissorhands. We have three kids. Our oldest is an adult; she teaches high school in the same district as Mark, who teaches physics (I told you, he's a sweet-hearted nerd). She no longer lives with us, but I might write about her from time to time.

Our middle child, Holden, is the kind of genius that grown-ups make movies about. I mean, he's not Mozart or Einstein, but that's only because as parents, we haven't nurtured his prodigy potential as we could have.

Since the start of the school year three months ago, Holden, who is 7, in second grade, and has only received formal reading instruction in Spanish, has read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, two different chapter books on WWII, more picture books than I have bothered to track, and Beowulf. He liked it, but he was perturbed that Grendl's mother is only referred to as "She," but her husband has a name (Cain). (Woo! Mommy's little feminist!)

I honestly feel that Holden has too great an intellect for his family, and we are not exactly slouches. But he is sweet and adoring, he worships his daddy and has a painfully cheesy sense of humor with a particular penchant for puns.

Ruby is our youngest, and she is a grinning, shrieking, sweet-hearted handful. She's exactly 18 months younger than Holden (Scottish twins!), and she is delightfully weird. I pray she never loses her sweet, joyful, innocent weirdness.

To get a sense of Ruby, imagine Wednesday Addams as a sweet little American Girl doll. All goodness and light with a strong internal sense of right and wrong, a genuine adoration of almost everyone she meets, and a possibly unhealthy interest in death, corpses, rotten and rotting things, and the macabre in general.

She might grow up to be Mother Theresa. She might grow up to be Lady MacBeth. Whatever she chooses in life, she will do it with unmatched determination and single-minded focus.

Ruby is terror and hope wrapped up in a sweet little girl.

I'm a writer, mommy, and wife. I adore my family even as I often want to escape them. Sometimes I feel inspirational, sometimes I wallow in self-pity. Hopefully through it all, I'll make the world laugh.