I'm a Midwestern American wife, mom, and grammie to five. Coffee, Tea, Books, and Me was started in the summer of 2006 at the
I love to share my passion for good coffee in the morning, all things tea time, great books, enjoying and honoring the role of homemaker, and ponderings of a Christian nature.
When I first started blogging, I was still homeschooling full time and loving it. It still boggles my mind the homeschooling years are behind us... where did the time go?
There are two kids who were born twelve years apart... not my idea of timing but God's. Stephanie is married with five children and lives in New England. She is and always will be my best girlie type friend.
Christopher is a computer science major at University. He will be graduating from college this year and married the love of his life in May.
He was officially homeschooled while Stephanie went through the public schools but was homeschooled unofficially... as are all children. He is a joy and delight, in a guy sort of way.
There is another son... our firstborn, Matthew, who went to Heaven very soon after his premature birth. We all look forward to meeting him someday.
When I first started blogging, our two beloved elderly cats... Sasha and Storm... were still with us. They have since gone on to their kitty rewards and we miss them terribly.
God sent to us our Miss Victoria (a Maine coon kitty with an attitude and much affection) when friends from church needed to find a home for her. Now that we have had her a couple of years, she runs the household. ;)
I became a Christian as a teenager although I was raised in a non-church going home. I am passionate about the change Jesus makes in a person's life. He is not a religion, He came to reconcile man to God. He truly is my best friend who never fails me. Peace IS a Person.
In the past, I have worked in Human Resources and Organization Development, been on both volunteer and paid staff of a few churches, worked temp jobs when we needed extra income, and sold homemade folk art items at craft sales.
When we made our decision to homeschool after a horrible first grade experience with our son, I no longer worked full time outside the home. Instead I took what had been an interest (shopping frugally and not paying full price) and utilized these skills to help stretch the family budget.
I began writing online as part of an emergency preparedness website in the latter part of the 1990s. I inherited a desire to deepen the pantry from my mother and shared these skills online since then. I still have a passion for emergency preparedness, it just comes through a little differently in this blog.
While my husband has had an illness since before we married, it became apparent around 2003 that he could no longer work in a regular job. He applied for and was granted Social Security Disability, based on his long term health problems. He had been a Quality Assurance Engineer and manager.
I developed Type 1 (Juvenile) diabetes in my early 40s. The diabetes brought about a thyroid disease. I now am living a life complicated by the results of long term chronic illness but one learns to go on in spite of these circumstances.
Life can be good even if it is not perfect. :)
