I was born and raised in Arizona. As a child, I remember being allowed to stay home on snow days. There were two of them. The snow melted by noon. The idea of a change in seasons fascinated me back then, and I dreamed of living somewhere where the weather was something besides sunny and warm or sunny and hot, although I admit monsoon season was a treat.

So it's not surprising that when I graduated in with a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education, I moved to Colorado to teach second grade. BTW-Denver has the most amazing snow. Huge flakes drift down and blanket the ground in marshmallow cream. Colorado has fabulous seasons.

A few years later, I became the ridiculously proud parent of Matthew and Andrew. I continued teaching, this time as a substitute, and tried my hand as a stay-at-home mom. (This was tougher than I thought for a person with two career passions: teaching and writing.)

During this time, my family continued to move around. We spent a year and a half living outside of D. C., in Gaithersburg, Maryland, before settling in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Summer in Pittsburgh is heavenly, while the rest of the year is something else. Freezing rain and frozen, dirty snow made me long for Tucson sunshine.

In Pittsburgh, I continued to be a stay-at-home mom, so I decided to invest time in my writing. As luck would have it, I submitted a humor article to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to an editor with the same sense of humor. He offered me a job as a newspaper correspondent, and I worked with him for three years. Imagine being paid for writing.

Funny, though, my passion for teaching refused to stay dormant, and when one of my boys was unable to attend school without becoming seriously ill, I decided to home school. This was a blast—most of the time—and Homeschool Ski Club seemed the ideal way to redeem the gray weather.

When mold allergies made it impossible for two family members to remain in Pennsylvania, we all returned to Tucson where I continued home schooling, and where rain went back to being a treat instead of the norm. Then two things converged: I entered a long distance writing program at Seton Hill University, and I renewed my Arizona teaching certificate (K-8).

In 2003, I enrolled my boys at Sonoran Science Academy and planned on focusing solely on my master's. But I just couldn't resist letting the administration know that I was interested in occasionally substitute teaching.

Here's the inside story few people know: I remember Jessica calling and asking me to come in and interview for a position as a permanent substitute. I am occasionally dense, so I assumed this would get me on Sonoran's permanent substitute list. I was wrong. It was for a position as the 6th grade Language Arts and History teacher. The current teacher had moved on to another position. Who knew?

Well, I can tell you I felt like it was the worst job interview I've ever done. I was ten minutes into the interview before I realized it was for a full-time job. A panic attacked ensued, which generally makes me more gregarious. Rather than admit my mistake, I pitched my way through fully expecting a polite turn down. To my delight, Sonoran offered me the job, and I became the new 6th grade L.A. and History teacher for that year. I'd always intended to go back to teaching, but think of my joy when I discovered this new job combined my two passions: I now taught writing.

I currently teach 8th Grade Language Arts and 9th Grade Pre-AP. I finished my Master of Arts in Writing Popular Fiction in 2006 and currently hold both an elementary and a secondary teaching certificate with endorsements in middle school language arts, English, and Structured English Immersion.