My Life Story for Facebook

(Updated 10/15/2009)

Let's get you up to speed!

Background:
I was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas but moved to Glenpool, OK around the age of 2. I went to school at Glenpool all 13 years and graduated in 1999. It's scary that half of my friends on FB are people I only know from high school because I am definitely not the same person now as I was then. And no, the same cannot be said for everyone.

After high school, I spent my first 1.5 semesters at East Central University before becoming very ill in February 2000. I was eventually diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder. I ended up dropping half of my classes that semester and came crawling back home to Mommy and Daddy. I've been well ever since then, thank you. After moving back home, I split my time between working at the corporate office for a local independent rural telephone company and taking the college courses I needed wherever they were offered for the cheapest price. Thus, I have attended Tulsa Community College and Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Muskogee, and Broken Arrow. I graduated summa cum laude in May 2003 with a major in Elementary Education and a minor in Psychology. It was not the experience I thought I was going to have both socially (mostly older people attend the night classes I took) and academically (the difficulty level was scarcely more than high school).

After college, I then moved to Houston, Texas, and taught third grade for a year in the Spring Branch ISD district. Aside from making some wonderful friends and getting my first dog, it was not a great year. And teaching was never my long term plan. So yet again, I came crawling back to my Tulsa roots. This time it wasn't with Mommy and Daddy. I took the same job I had while in college. I still work there doing mostly accounting/executive assistant things. And although it wasn't what I thought was planned at all, I really love my job.

As fate/God/the stars would have it, my brothers joined band in middle school. In May 2005, I went to their concert. Some guy I sorta kinda knew in high school was now the assistant director of the band. I ended up chatting with him for nearly 2 hours after the concert. One thing led to another and that guy is now my husband. Doug Reynolds and I were married Cinco de Mayo 2007. I'm quite lucky to have married a very sweet, supportive, loving, caring, smart, nice, and responsible husband who even came with a great set of parents! Who else out there can say they really love their in-laws?

In November 2008, we purchased out first house in Broken Arrow. It's an average house in an average neighborhood.

In April 2009, my mother suffered a relatively major health crisis. She suffered a minor stroke that was due to an 18mm congenital atrial septal defect. That's fancy talk for huge hole between upper chambers of her heart. The hole was repaired with a space-age device called an AMPLATZER Septal Occluder. Although the stroke left her with only 60% of her vision, you'd never know she had one. And because bad things come in threes, a large meningioma (benign brain tumor) was also discovered during this time. It is unclear right now if this will need to be removed with surgery.

I love babies, but we have no babies. We're not planning on having babies anytime soon. And just as much as I respect your decision to have however many children you want, I would appreciate your respect in our decision to remain childless at this time.

We have some big things coming down the pipes in a few years, but those will be revealed when the time is right.