About

Some random things about me:

I’m a six-times WI Cherry Pit Spit Champion. I won my first trophy when I was twelve, and I don’t think my dad has ever been more proud of me. I went on one year to win the overall trophy with a personal best of 39 feet 11 1/2 inches. It would have gone farther, but it hit a measurement marker and bounced back.

I refuse to pick between dogs and cats, and you can’t make me. I had a Golden Retriever growing up, and he was the best boy ever. I have two cats right now, both torties, both angry at the laptop that takes up their snuggle spot.

I sometimes wonder about how many strangers’ homes my likeness is hanging up in the backgrounds of their photographs.

I refuse to compromise on chocolate – it has to be good. Dagoba’s Chai (which doesn’t exist anymore *sobs*), Alter Eco’s Deep Dark Salted Brown Butter Bar, and the dark chocolate covered ginger from the Willy Street Co-op in Madison, WI, are my all-time favorites. The best chocolate I’ve ever had, though, was when I was assistant director of a study abroad to Costa Rica, and we took the students on a cocoa tour – we crushed freshly roasted cocoa nibs, mixed in a little cinnamon and cain sugar, and then all died of bliss.

I know music is a super personal thing – but I have a hard time understanding how someone could just “not like” music. To be fair, my dad was a drummer in the ’60s in Chicago, and I grew up in a music-filled home. I was also raised to know that music is always best live – whether a large concert venue or someone with an acoustic guitar on a tiny stage in a coffee shop, I’m in my happy place. (Though as an Introvert, I do prefer the tiny coffee shop.)

I hated coffee for the first thirty-two years of my life. Couldn’t even stand the smell. Then I went to Costa Rica, and my co-director introduced me to the mocha – and now I don’t know what I ever did before coffee. Don’t let people tell you otherwise – chocolate is a gateway.

Some quotes from some of my favorite books:

“There are those who might think that think this was an act of useless bravery in an extermination camp when there were other, more pressing concerns – books don’t cure illness; they can’t be used as weapons to defeat an army of executioners; they don’t fill your stomach or quench your thirst. It’s true: culture isn’t necessary for the survival of mankind; for that, you only need bread and water. It’s also true that with bread to eat and water to drink, humans survive; but with only this, humanity dies.”

~ Antonio G. Iturbe, The Librarian of Auschwitz