Our house is a magnet for wildlife, and I’ve had the opportunity to witness foxes raising their kits (once those kits were seen playing with the resident baby skunks!), a coyote grow up, meet her mate and raise pups in our backyard, a cardinal who put her nest on my front door wreath, a groundhog who would lie stretched over two of our deck stairs as if they were its own personal lounge chair, and George, the stray cat who claimed ownership of us and our garage for four years. 

We had an English budgerigar, a breed of parakeet which has a fairly large head. His name was Speakeasy, but we would joke that he was our ‘Big Giant Head’ (the name of the head alien on Third Rock from the Sun). One day he actually said, “I’m a Big Giant Head.” We had never used the words “I am” with that phrase! Apparently he was appropriately named!

I love creating gardens! And I especially love using rocks – as borders, as paths and to corral perennials that otherwise would spread too much. I’ve been known to buy 750 lbs of rocks at a time – choosing each stone, hauling it to my car and then once home, lifting it out of the car and carrying it to the garden. That’s my favorite thing to do in the summer.

We lost nearly everything, including important paperwork, to smoke damage from a house fire, and since then, I am a scanning fanatic. I scan every receipt and nearly every piece of paper that comes across my desk. Now my right thumb has some arthritis, and I think that it might be from lifting the scanner lid thousands of times.

In my 60’s, I am learning to roller skate. With the help of two walking sticks – and that is a step up from before, when I was using the four-footed cane that my grandmother left me. I’m thinking of looking for one of those giant clear vinyl bubbles that you can wear around you. The cane has two purposes though – it helps to protect me as I learn and if things go wrong, I can use it afterward, too.

“Susan’s unconditional presence gave me the safety to work at a deep level with issues that had kept me stuck for a long time.  Her ability to use her intuition, insightful mind, and wonderful heart combined to give me the opportunity to really move to the next step in my life.