Besides writing and publishing my poems and making  paintings, I also enjoy travel, gardening, and  spending time with my husband, poet,Wayne Lee, and my current service dog, Austin , a lovely golden retriever. (see photo below).

For a couple of years Morgan and Austin were together. I got Austin, Morgan's successor service dog, in January 2010. Morgan was already retired from service  work, but he needed a new job, always excited about learning new things, he 
became a therapy dog. I taught him to read about ten words, and we went as volunteers to a 3rd grade elementary school class and to a local retirement home. Sadly, Morgan went to the rainbow bridge, March 3, 2012. We miss him, but he always will be with us in our hearts. At his memorial friends said the same thing over and over: he was an old soul and the gentlest dog they ever met.

Austin came to me from Support Dogs of St. Louis, in January, 2010. He was born and bred 30 miles from where I grew up as a kid in Missouri. I spent two freeezing cold weeks in St. Louis , going through "dog school," learning how to be Austin's dog handler. We graduated and flew home to Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2010 we stilll had three other gereactric animals at home, Morgan ad two old cats, Sophie and Willow, making the humans of the house outnumbered 2-1! Talk about hairy beasts! Animals make us more human; life is good, animals make it better.

Check out my other paintings here.