When I am not busy working the camera, you can find me reading the weather forecasts and watching the thunderstorms roll by. The hills in the Driftless Region of Southwest Wisconsin make chasing storms a less than smart hobby. We enjoy them from the comforts of our front porch (usually). We take a week every summer for family vacation and  have never gone to the same place twice. We enjoying giving the kids the opportunities to experience as many parts of the country as we can.

 

When I break away from the computer, my sanctuary is on the back deck with my cat and a lovely mug of coffee. Who am I kidding, though … playing taxi driver to a high school freshman and her little brother has become a common occurrence. As the kids grow up, their calendars take over.

 

Halloween is a favorite holiday in our house. We watch new and old, domestic and foreign, dark and funny, horror movies with friends almost every weekend from early September through our Halloween Hangover night, which is the weekend after Halloween. I love Val Lewton movies, creepy and scary ghost stories, the jump scares and Universal Monsters. I can skip the gross and gory stuff.

 

Growing up in Grant County, Wisconsin, I missed the hills of the Driftless region when we lived over on the east side of the state. We are now settled in the Wisconsin River Valley. I have fallen deeply in love with the Sandhill Cranes, especially as they gather in larger and larger groups through late autumn before heading south for a few months.

 

Jason, my husband, runs a cocktail blog that I help manage and photograph for. We write about a variety of classic and original recipes. We do a few tastings and reviews from time to time, and post about any destination bars we are lucky enough to visit.

 

I love my flower and herb gardens. Every spring I clean them up and get them ready for the new season. However, by mid-summer the weeds get ahead of me. My plants have to be tough and hardy. I mostly grow the garden for the purpose of photographing the plants. I cannot pick a favorite flower, it varies by the season. I love the early Spring Johnny Jump-Ups (Violas) and Wisconsin’s state flower, the wood violet. By summer, I am eagerly awaiting the daylilies to bloom. Late summer and early fall bring the sunflowers, which always put a smile on my face.

 

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