My mother, Carolyn Cassady's influence provides my artist's sensibility and love of architecture, history, human nature, spirituality, & the natural world. She also passed on the editing gene and attention to detail, for better or worse.  Now, if I could just tap into her tremendous discipline and focus!

 

I spent the first twenty years of my working life as a medical transcriber and medical office assistant.  Realizing it is not healthy to sit all day, I returned to college and over the next ten years of working full time and attending school,

I earned a BS in Exercise Physiology and an MS in Worksite  Wellness Management. The rest of my career was spent managing employee wellness and fitness programs at USAA in Sacramento, CA and as the Activities and Fitness Director for a 55+ Pulte community in Rocklin, CA.

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Since retiring, I've indulged in my passions which include: love of kids (besides spending time with our grandchildren, I worked in a school Learning Center and volunteered at schools in St. George, Utah), medicine (medical office receptionist), history (State Park volunteer at Empire Mine State Park in Grass Valley, CA), historical architecture and ancient cultures, travel (to many states in the U.S. plus Canada, Cancun, San Juan Islands, Hawaii, Scotland, England), hiking (favorites: the red cliffs in Zion National Park and around St. George, Utah where we lived for five years, and in the Sierras near our current home in the California Gold Country), learning (always taking classes!), movement and dance (tai chi, line dance, clogging, attending every dance performance I can find) and language and editing (member of Gold Country Writers and editor of the newsletter, library staff member in St. George, Utah. I also edited and published our mother's manuscript Travel Tips for the Timid in 2018 and edited and co-authored Poetic Portrait: Carolyn Cassady Revealed in Poetry and Prose which was released in 2020.

 

My story about volunteering at the writers' conference in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico is under "Musings."

 

I have been married to wonderful George Sylvia since 1980. We share three children and six grandchildren, all of whom live near us in Northern California. Our lives are enhanced by the antics of our sweet labradoodle, Tula. 

 

I have lived in San Francisco (where I was born); San Jose, CA; Monte Sereno, CA; San Antonio, Texas (where my son, Bill, was born); Tacoma, WA; Campbell, CA; Santa Clara, CA; Applegate, CA; Rocklin, CA; St. George, Utah and currently in Lincoln, CA.