Hello. I turned 34 last week. My age feels both accurate and inaccurate. Like I don’t feel 34 while sitting on my office chair with my feet tucked under my butt. But I guess I do feel 34 when I drive my minivan to pick up my kids from school. The heartburn and the back pain screams 34 haha.

Anyways, to celebrate my age I wrote 34 random facts about myself, one for each year I’ve been alive. You’re welcome.

1. I was born in the same exact hospital that I birthed my first child in.
2. Dinosaurs have been a special interest of mine ever since I was two.
3. One of my earliest memories is giving myself the chicken pox. I was jealous that my mom counted all of my sister’s chicken pox and so I snuck into her room when she was asleep and tried to “breathe in her germs” hahaha! Unfortunately, it worked and I got WAY sicker than she had been.
4. I wrote my first story at three or four. I drew it as a four panel picture on a Mac “Kids Pic” program. And it was about the chicken pox I gave myself lol. (“I got chicken pox”, “Then Mom gave me a bath”, “Then I felt better”, “The End”)
5. I’m the middle child in my family. I have a sister three years older than me and a brother five years younger than me.
6. I’ve always held my pencil “weird”. Resting on my middle finger instead of pinching it or whatever. My first grade teacher tried and tried to correct it but I still hold my pencil that way as an adult.
7. When I was in second grade I was obsessed with Santa’s reindeer. I wrote them each individual letters instead of Santa that year.
8. In third grade I purposely sat in the back of the class so I could write stories in my blue denim notebook all day instead of pay attention to the teacher. I filled that notebook and I still have it.
9. At 9, I briefly took acting classes but I couldn’t sing worth a dime so I never got cast in any significant roles
10. I started directing my own plays and performed them for all the other 5th grade classes. (This was the skit I had my friends do haha: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfLdFZ4my9g )
11. The only time I got a ticket or a pink slip in school was when I snuck under the fence to play in the creek next to our elementary school. My mom wasn’t even mad about it. She was more mad about the girl who tattled on me.
12. In Jr. High, I had a red guinea pig named Joe.
13. At thirteen, I wrote, directed and starred in a play I put on for my local church. It was a comedy called, “The Foot.”
14. I was obsessed with the original Twilight Zone. I even threw a Twilight Zone party for my friends. That TV show would become a massive influence on my writing.
15. Took 4 years of French in secondary school because I liked this guy in my class. Can’t remember a single word and speak fluent Spanish now lol.
16. In high school, I wrote a full-length feature film with my friends. A low-budget student slasher. (What else?) It wasn’t very good or anything lol but it ended up being a creative catalyst for a lot of the kids who worked on that project, including me.
17. I got shingles my senior year. How does that even happen? Haha. The haunts of giving myself the chicken pox
18. One year I repeatedly got cast as a monkey in a few different plays. Type casting I guess.
19. I studied Classical Acting at Southern Utah University until I ran out of money and had to move back home.
20. One of my favorite hobbies when I was 20 was exploring abandoned buildings. One time the cops came and my friends and I hid ourselves inside an abandoned school. (oops)
21. I lived in various areas of Peru for a year and a half. Lima, Trujillo, Salaverry, and Neuvo Chimbote.
22. Twenty-two was one of the worst years of my whole life. Like the entire year. Birthday to birthday. Just horrific. I couldn’t think of a single good fact I wanted to say about this year. So I guess that’s my fact. Unlike the popular song at the time, I was not feeling 22 lol.
23. Coincidentally, twenty-three was one of the absolute best years of my life. Even at the time I called it “The Golden Year”. I ended up meeting my soul mate when I was 23.
24. I used to work in Accounts Receivable at a printer company and got in trouble for writing during work (Heh heh heh. It wasn’t funny to me at the time, but now it is.)
25. I left my job at the printer company and went back to school. In my Intro to Educational Psychology class, the professor said that “the things we chose to do in our free time as children reflects as close to our true selves as possible.” That’s the moment I realized how much story-telling has been a passion throughout my life.
26. When I was twenty-six, I began writing regularly and have not looked back since!
27. The first time I had ever set foot in the Phoenix area, was when I stepped off the plane to live here.
28. I found out my first story was going to be professionally published while I was in active labor with my second child.
29. At twenty-nine I had this life-changing Beatlemania phase that… never went away lol.
30. We moved into our first house the exact weekend that everything shut down for the pandemic.
31. I have three spectacular kids and I’m not just saying that. I really love each of those three people so dang much.
32. I published my first book on Amazon at thirty-two.
33. I got my first screen-writing credit at thirty-three.
34. At thirty-four, I still sit on my office chair with my feet tucked under my butt haha